★★
“Bad behind bars.”
With that title, you’ll understand why it’s one I opted not to make part of family movie night. I mean, you can’t argue with the forthrightness, though I’ve little doubt it’s as “true” as most films which make that claim i.e. barely at all. However, the bigger problem is that it’s fairly borderline “pinky violence”, being considerably more interested in the pink than the violence: it’s arguably more of a roman porno. It’s as if someone presented a checklist of cliches from the woman in prison genre, and asked the director to cross them off as rapidly as possible. The resulting speed-run lasts barely more than seventy minutes, especially impressive considering the amount of time devoted to soft-core sex couplings, in various combinations.
We begin with the arrival in prison of serial re-offender Harumi Matsunaga (Seri*), a prostitute now on her fourth stay, and the taciturn Mayumi Hojo (Kozue), sent to jail for… Well, the film holds back on that information for a while, so I’m not going to spoiler it. After the obligatory induction into prison life, her silence quickly brings Mayumi into conflict with her cell’s resident top dog, Sadako Nogawa (Hiromi*), and the pair butt heads. Inevitably, eventual mutual respect develops, especially when a key is found, which could give both women the opportunity to escape the hellish environment of the facility.
The gap between these and the likes of Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, made three years earlier, could hardly be greater, and its not in this film’s favour. It begins with Kozue’s fairly bland portrayal of the heroine, in sharp contrast to Meiko Kaji. Given the absence of a strong central character, the film subsequently feels more like porn. Albeit porn with decent production values, though an apparently loose grasp on the concept of “informed consent”. Though I was somewhat impressed with the scene in which a guard has sex with an inmate being held in solitary confinement, through a slot in the cell door. The inventive means by which prisoners are checked for contraband – it involves a custom set of stairs – was also momentarily interesting.
But it’s mostly about sex: what else would you expect, from the director of the similarly-imaginatively titled, White Rose Campus: Then Everybody Gets Raped. And a great deal of sex too – in a variety of configurations, be it straight, gay, or solo. Let’s just say, in hindsight, giving the sexually repressed prisoners clay might have been a questionable decision by whoever is in charge of leisure activities. You’ll be left to tick off the items from your list. Sleazy prison doctor? Check. Extended sequence in the shower? Check. Revenge on the person responsible for incarceration? Take a guess. It’s all extremely formulaic, and doesn’t do it with enough energy to overcome its limitations, despite a funky soundtrack, courtesy of the Downtown Boogie Woogie Band.
Dir: Kôyû Ohara
Star: Hitomi Kozue, Meika Seri, Maya Hiromi, Rie Ozawa
* – There’s discrepancies between who plays who listed in reviews, and those in the IMDb. I’ve gone with the latter.
To some extent, Sonia (Arnezeder) is the very antithesis of an action heroine here. For she spends the vast bulk of the ninety minute running-time, sitting in the driver’s seat of her car. Admittedly, this is for good reason, because somebody has wired an anti-tank mine into the car’s circuitry, in a number of diabolical ways. There’s a countdown timer, anti-tamper device and it’s also liable to be triggered if the weight in the car drops below a certain amount. Making matters worse, her two kids are in the back. The reason is because of her work in bomb disposal, part of a charity that disarms mines in the Ukraine, a task which has made her certain enemies.
This sequel to 
Despite being a short 158 pages, this definitely managed to out-stay its welcome. There’s books aimed at the young, and then there are books which leave you feeling like you have actively lost IQ points reading them. Guess what category this falls into? It’s not a terrible idea, taking Robin Hood and making her a woman. Could have been worse: she could have been a black, bisexual rapper too [I 
What’s unusual here is that, allow this is an American production, the cast and crew are almost entirely of South Asian origin. Which is fine, except that writer/director Gil has an imperfect grasp of English. Witness the opening voice-over, which I present verbatim: “There are three wants which can never be satisfied. That of the mastermind who want more, that of the peddler who pray for more, and that of the whistle stopper who don’t know when to say enough.” Um, yes? Fortunately, it’s not too dialogue-heavy, and the plot is mercifully basic, albeit needlessly cluttered up with jumps around in time of weeks, months or days, which a more skilled creator would have avoided.
Coincidentally, I watched this the night after Sinners, another period piece which looks at the place of a specific culture in society. There, it was music in predominantly black society of the thirties; here, it’s professional wrestling in the overwhelmingly white society of the fifties [the presence of in this WWE champion Naomi as Ethel Johnson, feels very much a token gesture]. Definitely fewer vampires in this, however. It’s the story of Mildred Burke (Rickards), who went from working as a waitress in a diner, though wrestling at carnivals, to become one of the biggest draws in the ring of her time. The end of the film calls her the first woman to become a millionaire through sports. 
I’m not sure whether this is too long or too short for its own good. Could be a little bit of both. As the tag-line for this review suggests, it bears more than a superficial resemblance to 
Turns out that Marvel and DC are not the only ones creating “cinematic universes” based on comic book. Another example can be found, perhaps surprisingly, in Indonesia. This film is part of the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe, and is a follow-up to 2019’s Gundala. I haven’t seen that, but I’m 99% sure that the scene in the end-credits is a direct cross-over to that, featuring its hero, given the apparent prediction late on of a team up to come between him and Sri Asih. Otherwise, though, this stands on its own, and you don’t need to have seen Gundala, or be familiar with the comic-book series about Sri Asih, created by R.A. Kosasih, and first published all the way back in 1954.
And if the above phrase doesn’t make any sense – it’s basically an underwhelming outcome during a baseball game – then you are probably not the target audience for this sporting drama. After almost a quarter-century living in America (much of it spent running a site about the local team as a sideline!), I’m fairly well-versed in baseball’s intricacies. But in contrast to some of the other Korean movies in this genre, such as 
There’s a recent trend for horror films based on public domain characters. The most infamous is likely Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, but traditional fairy tales have also been exploited to the same end. This is a sequel of sorts to the same studio’s Cinderella’s Curse (which I have not seen), but basically hurls every princess of legend into the mix. The excuse is Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter (Santer), who in this incarnation is a Joker-like psycho, who has kidnapped Alice (Desmond) and made her his slave, courtesy of his magic. He now wants a bride, and to this end abducts a selection of princesses and others e.g. Tinker Bell, as potential candidates. They will fight to the death. Last one alive becomes Mrs. Hatter.