★★½
“The Seven Schoolgirl Samurai”
I have so many questions about the Japanese education system after watching this. It takes place in a high school whose student council is repeatedly being squeezed for extortion money by the Yagyu, a local biker gang. They ride up to the place, beating up and terrorizing the students, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Where, exactly, is the principal when all this is going on? Teachers? Concerned parents? There is a throwaway line about how reporting things to the police would only make the gang attack harder. But you’d think some adult might notice and want to get involved? Mind you, outside of their chosen mode of transport, the gang themselves are largely indistinguishable from pupils, except for perhaps having slightly longer hair. Apparently in Japan, collar-length hair is like wearing a jacket with a Hell’s Angels patch.
Fed up with all this, the council hire a yojimbo or bodyguard – explicitly referencing The Seven Samurai as they do so. To the council president’s surprise, this is Saeka Agawa (Usami), a bit of a delinquent herself. She recruits a number of her female friends, including a joshi pro wrestler and a stunt-woman. Under the guise of a “music club,” they train the pupils in the fine art of school self-defense, and successfully repel the Yagyu. However, the gang don’t take defeat easily, and this is where things get complicated, because it turns out that Saeka has previous history with Leopard (Ninagawa), the woman who runs them. They retaliate with a kidnapping, demanding both money and that Saeka stay out of their business, pushing the council’s resolve close to breaking point. However, Saeka insists they stay the course, setting the stage for a final battle, as both sides marshal all their resources into a winner-takes-all conflict. I should mention this includes the pupils driving around campus in a van converted to use both artillery and a flamethrower. Once again, where are the adults?
Sadly, it’s not nearly as much fun as the above scenario may sound. It’s the kind of thing which echoes the classic pinky violence scenarios. Yet despite what the poster may suggest, instead of being uncompromisingly for mature viewers, there’s hardly anything in here which would push it above a PG rating. That’s when you can see anything at all, with Nakamura being far too fond of backlighting and smoke for the film’s good, though he does manage a number of stylish shots. Also of note, both the dialogue and a canonically eighties pop song on the soundtrack echo the poster by saying “Go for break”, which annoyed me much more than it realistically should. At north of 105 minutes, it definitely drags at point, and few of the “samurai” beyond Saeka are given even the slightest bit of development. It’s the kind of film I’d love to see remade by someone like Takashi Miike or Sion Sono, who could bring out the undeniable potential, which this version mostly leaves on the table.
Dir: Genji Nakamura
Star: Yukari Usami, Kozue Saito, Yuki Ninagawa, Rikako Murakami
a.k.a. V Madonna: War