★★★
“All men are rapist scum. Now, once again, here are our titties.”
This resembles an adult version of Cat’s Eye, an 80’s manga which became an anime series, and eventually (1997) also a live-action film. Both feature a trio of ladies with a fondness for tight costumes, who run a cafe by day, while engaging in unusual overtime work. In Cat’s Eye, it was robbery; here, it’s punishing rapists, lechers, etc. in painful, genital-related ways. And, of course, two local policemen patronise the cafe, blithely oblivious to the extra-curricular activities of the trio, who leave a calling-card of a stilletto on their victims, and are known as the “High-Heeled Cats”. [The title above, which it’s generally called, seems to be a Video Search of Miami invention.]
It’s strangely schizoid: largely light-hearted, yet including some downright nasty sexual assaults, and the anti-chauvinist message of the heroines is diluted by their dressing, undressing and showering at every opportunity. [I suspect this is the main purpose of the feature, especially since they can’t fight for toffee.] When they cross a Yakuza boss, he uncovers their secret identities and kidnaps one while on a delivery run. It’s up to her friends, aided by the cops, to save the day. After a brisk start, there are few surprises here – subtitles are largely superfluous – though some “vengeances” extracted by the girls are imaginative. This falls some way short of being enough to sustain a feature, and how much you get out of this is possibly linked to your interest in masochism.
Dir: Takashi Kodami
Star: Misuzu Saiki, Manami Morimura, Minori Sonoda (The D-Cats)