Tag: crime

Prime Suspect

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Before there was The Cooler, before there was either version of The Killing, and obviously before there was Maria Bello’s short-lived Americanized take, there was Dame Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison, one of the canonical figures of action heroine television over the past two decades. Though only fifteen feature-length episodes were aired – that works out at only one a year between the show’s debut in 1991, and its finale in 2006 – it has become an archetype for its portrayal of a female detective, relentless in her pursuit of criminals, but considerably more ill at-ease and abrasive when handling the people with whom she has to work. She’s great at spotting clues, interrogating suspects and putting together the pieces. However, Tennison’s personal life is a complete mess, she screws up any relationships on an almost daily basis, and is completely incapable of striking a balance between work and everything outside it.

Such a complex character requires an actress of the highest talents, and Mirren provides it. Before her film career, she cut here teeth with the Royal Shakespeare Company, though her early cinematic work includes both classic (The Long Good Friday) and entries which one suspects she’d rather forget (Caligula!). But even in the latter, she still carried herself with grace and poise, elevating the material. By the early nineties, she was respwected, yet not quite as renowned as she would become – her first Oscar nomination would not be until 1994, for The Madness of King George. Even now, Mirren acknowledges the show’s importance in her career: “It was an incredibly important part of what’s got me to where I am today. It was intense, many many hours on a set with many different directors, many different writers. I loved it, and that’s the way you learn.” Series creator Lynda LaPlante was also well established, having previously created a similarly iconic female character, on the other side of the law, in Dolly Rawlins, for her crime series, Widows.

While far from the first to portray a British female detective, the new show was a fairly-radical departure from previous entries such as Juliet Bravo or The Gentle Touch which, as the latter’s name suggests, sought to portray a kinder, gentler police force, with heroines comfortable at both home and work. LaPlante was having none of that, placing Jane Tennison in situations which contrasted her skills at police-work with her abject failures elsewhere (the show wisely chooses to focus much more on the former). Right from the start, Tennison has to prove herself in a male-dominated environment against the constant suspicion that she reached her position because of affirmative action, rather than on merit. Finding the right person for the role was crucial, LaPlante told NewsWeek in 1994, “She’s not physically heavy, but she has a strength inside her that is unusual. There’s a stillness to her, a great tension and intelligence in her face.”

One of the fascinating things about the show is the change that Tennison undergoes over the course of the series, which is particularly apparent if you watch them all in relatively short order. It would be hard to imagine an American show sticking with the same character over such a long period, but the infrequency of the production likely helps, and we see Tennison evolve over the length of the show from a somewhat tentative and naive detective, becoming hard-bitten and cynical (for very good cause), eventually ending up an alcoholic, teetering on the edge of complete burn-out and suffering from blackouts and the DTs, who is trying to solve one last case reach retirement through sheer, bloody-minded willpower. It’s a fascinating arc to watch, and I particularly appreciated the way, at the end of the final episode, the writers didn’t provide an obvious or “fluffy” ending, which could have compromised the integrity of the entire show.

“Women are taught to smile, to be pleasant, to be charming, to be attractive. Tennison doesn’t do that. She is driven, obsessive, vulnerable, unpleasantly egotistical, and confused. But she is damn good at what she does and is totally dedicated.”
— Helen Mirren

Mirren is the sole character to appear in all the episodes. She’s supported by a swathe of faces you’ll recognize if you spend any time watching British television or movies. The first series alone included future Oscar nominees Tom Wilkinson and Ranulph Fiennes, as well as Zoe Wanamaker, and others to be seen include David Thewlis, Ciaran Hinds, Jonny Lee Miller, Mark Strong, Frank Finlay and Peter Capaldi, recently announced as the new Dr. Who [in Suspect, he plays a transvestite, which is certainly… different]. Most of the series are single stories, told over two 100-minute episodes, except for the fourth, which is a trio of individual parts. This extended length, allowing a single crime to be dissected in greater depth, is another difference to American shows, which tend very much to be “crime of the week,” with or without also a longer story arc.

While all the cases are homicides, they cover a wide breadth. After the first season, there tended to be an underlying social issue: this could be racial, political or class-based, and often provide an additional level of difficulty to the investigation. Particularly in the early seasons, Tennison is depicted as having to fight prejudice from her colleagues. The feminist aspects (perhaps thankfully) do fade somewhat, once she becomes more established, though the level of support she gets from her superiors is never something on which she can rely. Throughout, she struggles with self-doubt and loneliness in her position, no-one able to understand the pressures of the job, and help share the burden on her shoulders. But part of her strength is that it never interferes with her dedication to the case, or her pursuit of those responsible for wrong-doing. Unlike a good number of her colleagues, who are sometimes prepared to sacrifice justice for the sake of expediency, Tennison’s morality is absolute, and she won’t compromise it for anything, regardless of the potential personal cost.

Obviously, this isn’t “action” in the “fisticuffs and car-chase” mould of policework (I’ll refer you to Red and its sequel if you want to see Mirren wielding the heavy weaponry!). Virtually the only weapons Tennison wields are her mind and her tongue, but it’s hard to tell which is the sharper, and they are both undeniably effective at getting to the truth, no matter how deeply it may be hidden. Her bravery is undeniable, not just in the perpetual quest for justice mentioned above, but her willingness to put herself into potentially lethal situations when the need arises., such as at the end of the fifth series where she faces an armed suspect, alone and without anything to protect her. While it’s one thing to go into such situations with the physical presence to handle them, doing so when you don’t have such an ability, is probably even more courageous.

Though some episodes are now more than 20 years old, they hardly seem dated at all: the writing is still sharp as a razor, and can stand with anything you’ll find on television today. But it’s Mirren’s performance which makes this work, and is why I just didn’t bother with the US remake; good though Bello might be, she can’t hold a candle to the original. There’s a reason Mirren was nominated for six Emmys, winning two, and six BAFTAs, taking home three. Virtually every cop show with a female lead which has come out since – or, at least, all the good ones – owe something to Prime Suspect, and a central character who embodies the tension between work and home life. Never shying away from the darker side of law-enforcement, or the toll it exerts on those who maintain it, this isn’t just one of the best recent action heroine TV series, it’s among the best TV series of any genre or era.

Zero Woman: Final Mission

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★★★½

Probably the least accurate title of any film ever – at least Friday the 13th put out a few movies before using “final” – you definitely should begin here if you’re looking for much coherence. Rei (Iijima) is now partly employed as secretary to the head of Section Zero, but also takes out criminals for whom traditional channels of law enforcement aren’t enough, for one reason or another. She also pals around with Takako (Fukuoka), a detective from another section and a girl he helped bring out of delinquency, in what’s vaguely intimated as a love triangle. One night, they witness a hit and run, and discover the perpetrator (Suzuki) is the daughter of a powerful economic figure. Despite encountering official resistance, Rei and Takako persist with their investigation and, inevitably, this brings out more robust sanctions.

This does take some time to get going: it’s probably about 25 minutes before the car-micide in question, really kicks things off, and the film is more or less in a holding pattern until then. Still, Iijima certainly looks the part, and unlike some of the other occupants of the position, you don’t get the sense she got the role purely for her willingness to disrobe. Indeed, she manages even to take a shower and gun down an intruder without straying much beyond the boundaries of PG-13. Not that there’s exactly a shortage of nudity in this production, most of it coming from Suzuki, who is portrayed as being kinda depraved and heavily into S/M. Indeed, this seems the case for the director, as Rei spends a far too large chunk of the second half, tied up and being tormented by what can only be described as a cackling sex dwarf [literally half his lines must have been, “Bwahahahaha!”]. Quite what this says about Enokido’s predilections, is probably best glossed-over.

There’s a cool colour palette used here, mostly blues and grays, and a couple of scenes which will certainly stick in the mind. One is the previously mentioned shower-ambush, and the other is one where Rei is on the phone to Takako, when their conversation is rudely interrupted on his end: gradually, she realizes that something is very, very wrong. It’s expertly crafted, with good performances from both ends of the telephone line, and you can’t help wondering that more of this, rather than so much of the Laughing Gnome, would have elevated this to a classic. Instead, it’s merely hints at greatness, and settles for being solid and effective, starting the franchise in a way of which the original movie could only have dreamed.

Dir: Koji Enokido
Star: Naoko Iijima, Takako Fukuoka, Misayo Haruki, Miho Suzuki

Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs

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★★½

When the series started in 1974, it originally appeared to be trying to take on the Female Convict Scorpion series at its own game – both were inspired by Toru Shinohara manga series. However, going by the fact it took more than two decades for a second entry in the series, I can only presume the commercial returns weren’t anywhere near as strong. This starts off well, with policewoman Rei (Sugimoto) luring in, and then blowing away, the man responsible for torturing and killing another woman. Turns out the perpetrator was a diplomat and in the resulting scandal, Rie is sent to jail. Her chance at redemption comes when a gang of thugs stumble into the kidnapping of the daughter of a politician (Tamba): to avoid a scandal, Rie is offered a pardon if she infiltrates the kidnappers and kills them all. Initially, all goes to plan, with the first member taken out quickly, but it soon becomes clear the other members are rampaging psychos, and the situation rapidly spirals out of control, to the point where the politician yanks his support and orders the deaths of everyone, in the name of damage limitation – including both his daughter and Rie.

The promising beginning is a bit of a con, as the majority of the film has Rei not doing much more than sitting around, waiting for the gang to destroy itself. Occasionally, she will prod them in a certain direction, but generally, they don’t exactly need much encouragement and she’s mostly passive rather than the vengeful fury for which I hoped. Now, there’s certainly plenty of tbe “fury” bit, with some of the most enthusiastic arterial spray I’ve seen for its time, and some of the torture scenes are close to unwatchably brutal (the cops are every bit as bad as, and perhaps worse than, the criminals in this area). However, Rei just isn’t as interesting a character as Sasori, despite sharing the same terse approach; she does fit in pretty well, to a cast of characters who all seem to possess few human or sympathetic qualities.

Things escalate particularly nicely at the end, when the police discard the “softly, softly” approach [which in seventies Japan, appears to mean “not actually killing people yourself“] and go after the gang, who have moved on to take a bunch of other hostages. This leads to a chase and shootout at an abandoned US military base, which probably also meant something significant in 70’s Japan, going by the occasional hints of anti-American sentiment. Noda has a broad stylistic palette, throwing montages, hand-held camera and freeze-frames into the mix, the last-named perhaps trying to evoke the manga spirit. It doesn’t come off as particularly memorable however, and if the lack of its own artistic style is more than made up for in copious sleaze, you can certainly see why no-one dared (or bothered?) to follow in its footsteps for more than 20 years.

Dir: Yukio Noda
Star: Miki Sugimoto, Eiji Go, Tetsuro Tamba, Hideo Murota

Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee’s Challenge

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★★
“In which Reiko Ike is shown the ropes. Lots of ropes…”

If the first Queen Bee movie was a fairly effective romp through the genre, that’s a lot less the case fot the follow-up, with Ike largely floundering around, as Maki, the leader of the Pearl Gang, who finds herself embroiled in a battle with another crew, the Black Lilies and their leader, Yuri (Kazama). Their spat is interrupted, when the Kuroji clan of yakuza throw their weight behind the Black Lilies. However, the triumph of the Lilies is short-lived, as they find out that they are about to be forced into life as prostitutes, for the benefit of their new allies, ending their life of freedom in the ‘hood. There are also subplots in which Yuri’s former boyfriend, Eizo wants to be a top racing driver, bringing him into conflict with the yakuza as well, and a suitcase filled with stolen guns.

Particularly early on, it’s no more than a series of vignettes, as we follow Maki and her crew as, for example, they attempt to swindle a monk who cheated a friend of hers, or pay a visit to a hot spring, where they are “voyeured” by a man wearing scuba gear. Oh, hold my aching sides, for I fear they may split. Meanwhile, the conflict between Maki and Yuki is decided by a game of chicken where they lie, head-to-head on the street, and someone drives a truck over them, until one of them faints. This is neither about as exciting as it sounds, i.e. not very. Though we do get introduced to a fairly new concept in sexual violence: rape by carbonated beverage. So, there’s that…

The main problems here are two-fold: the film takes too long to get to any significant meat, plotwise, and Suzuku seems overly keen on the sexual sadism. Now, it may seem odd to complain about that, considering the genre of pinky violence, but it definitely seems more of the focus here, and seems pretty graphic, too. If you’re coming to these films looking for empowering portrayals of strong women characters (as I am), what feels like lengthy scenes of bondage are probably not what you’re after. Ike doesn’t get the chance to get out of second-gear until the finale, which comes only after a badly-botched effort to extract revenge on the Kuroji mob. That comes about 70 minutes too late, to make this one a keeper.

Dir: Norifumi Suzuki
Star: Reiko Ike, Hiroshi Miyauchi, Chiyoko Kazama, Akiko Koyama

Teenage Bank Heist

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★★★
“Solidly acted and directed TVM, but the script definitely holds everything back.”

Recent high-school graduate Cassie (Cobb) works at a bank alongside her mother (Quinlan), bickering about the usual things, such as whether to go to college or not. This mundance existence is suddenly interrupted by a robbery: Cassie is stunned to realize the raiders are actually some of her school friends. When they realize this, the girls are forced to take her along, and she discovers the cause of the crime – the father of one (Thomson) has been kidnapped while on business in Mexico. Meanwhile, Mom is tracking down her kidnapped daughter, FBI agent Mendoza (Blasi) is also on the hunt, and one of the girl gang has her own plans for the ill-gotten gains, which doesn’t involve any ransom.

I wavered between 2.5 and 3 stars for this, but finally opted for the latter, because of the sheer volume of strong female characters: only one of the seven main characters is male, which is a rarity. The pacing is good, the film hitting the ground running from an intriguing opening scene, before flashing back to the lead-up to the robbery, and there pretty much isn’t a dull moment thereafter. Obviously, the TVM format imposes certain limitations on content, but the movie works within these fairly well, and the performances avoid most of the usual pitfalls and make the girls into fairly well-rounded, rather than irritating characters. Credit particularly Augie Duke as “bad girl” Marie, who has a fiery intensity that’s fun to watch.

So, why was I being indecisive, all the way down in the 2.5-3 star range? It’s the plotting, with a number of elements that are utterly implausible, particular with regard to the crime and how the FBI would handle circumstances. For instance, after getting surveillance footage of a crime, would they allow a witness unsupervised access to it? Do agents meander off to follow said witness out into the desert on little more than a hunch? There are a bunch of similar moments, where it’s necessary to suspend disbelief for plot reasons, not least the ending, which certainly had me raising a sardonic eyebrow and going “O RLY?” If these don’t damage the movie irreparably, they certainly weaken its impact significantly. And that’s a shame, as its strengths still certainly make it worth a look.

Dir: Doug Campbell
Star: Abbie Cobb, Maeve Quinlan, Cassi Thomson, Rosa Blasi

Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee’s Counterattack

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★★★
“Blue is the color; extortion, theft and other anti-social activities is the game.”

Reiko (Ike) is leader of the Athens Gang, a low-level all-girl gang, who specialize in car thefts and rolling naive salarymen with the lure of hot sex. They’re part of a hierarchy, which includes a male gang under whom they loosely operate, who are in turn on the fringes of a Yakuza group. There’s also a motor-cycle gang and its leader (Taki) who don’t obey anyone, and that independence is really what Reiko wants, even though her group is obliged to follow certain rules, such as not getting attached to any man. Things are disrupted by the return of former leader Jun (Kagawa) from reform school: will Reiko be able to hold on to her position? It’s just one of a large number of plot threads here: you also get the blackmail of a pop star; a hitman agreeing to one last mission; a gangster estranged from his wife and daughter; sex on motorcycles for no apparent reason; a journalist with a nose for scandal; and, of course Reiko failing to follow her own rule about no attachments.

That’s more of a problem than a benefit here, as the threads are of significantly varying interest. Obviously, I’m not averse to see Jun and Reiko brawl for control, and the heroic muck-raking writer is actually an interesting figure, cheerfully admitting to what he does, but also believing he genuinely makes a difference by exposing sordid sex scandals. While I didn’t realize how hierachical Japanese crime was, there are too many moments of earnest drama, that slow down what needs to be a fast-paced romped through the seedy underbelly of criminal life, and a couple of moments that are just laugh-out loud bad, such as when Jun asks for a farewell song from another gang member. What I want to know is, was the full orchestra she gets, hiding in a closet?

Despite the titles, which imply some kind of sequel, this was the first in a seven-film series, four directed by Suzuki. At this point, he still seems a little uncomfortable with the style, and there isn’t the necessary consistency of tone to provide a smooth ride. Ike and Kagawa are both good in their roles, however. Right from the first encounter, and the traditional girl-gang greeting, their interactions are a nicely-crafted mix of tension and politeness, and you know it’s only a matter of time until things finally kick off. When it does, this is indeed memorable. Otherwise, there’s just a bit too much filling, at the expense of the meat.

Dir: Norifumi Suzuki
Star: Reiko Ike, Yukie Kagawa, Keiko Yumi, Shinsuke Taki
a.k.a. Queen Bee Strikes Again

New Female Prisoner Scorpion: Special Cellblock X

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★★★½
“And we bid a fond farewell to Nami, and a third different actress.”

The comparisons of Takigawa to Lazenby above proved appropriate in another way, both being canned after one entry playing the iconic title character, which is probably just as symptomatic of something. The replacement here as Nami Matsushima is Natsuki, who seems to go back toward a more taciturn heroine, closer to the original. But it’s, effectively, another reboot, with not even a nod to the previous entry. In this case, the heroine is a nurse, framed for her involvement in the hospital murder of a politician who was threatening to expose corrupt practices. The film starts with her being sent back to jail after a failed escape attempt: that resulted in the rest of the inmates being punished, and they’re none too pleased to see her brought back. There’s also a pragmatic guard who is happy to keep the inmates supplied with cigs and chocolate in exchange for peace, but his position is threated by the arrival of a new head of “security”, with a much tougher stance. After trying to expose the abuse to a visiting dignitary, he ends up in hot water, and teams up with Nami, the pair going on the lam through the mountains, chained to each other – it’s a bit like Black Mama, White Mama, with characters forced to work together for their mutual benefit.

In some ways, this feels like a combination of the first two movies: it has the “woman wronged by the man she loves” theme of the original, and then the “escape through a blasted landscape” plotline from its immediate sequel. There’s also the usual helpings of abuse, though the sexual content here is significantly toned-down, with Natsuki barely showing a nipple. On the other hand, the S&M seems more intense, most notably a scene where multiple prisoners are bound and hung up, to be brutally beaten. By this point, I’ll confess that my interest in that aspect, never exactly great, was all but non-existent. Things did perk up post-escape, with some excellent cinematography, as the pair struggle through the deserted landscape [it’s easy to forget how concentrated the Japanese population is, leaving some areas almost desolate]. Of course, it ends with another vengeful confrontation for Nami – not for the first time, on a roof.

The paucity of original ideas to be found here likely indicates why the series went into dormancy thereafter. As a way to wrap up, however, it works fairly well, particularly if you consider it as a “greatest hits compilation” from the preceding entries. While Natsuki still falls short of the intensity brought to the role by Kaji, she is an improvement on Takigawa, and this moves at a brisk enough pace to sustain interest, even in a viewer looking for less prurient aspects.

Dir: Yutaka Kohira
Star: Yoko Natsuki, Masashi Ishibashi, Hiroshi Tachi, Takeo Chii

New Female Prisoner Scorpion 701

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★★★
“Reset! Reset!”

Just goes to show that the “cinematic reboot” is not a 21st-century invention, e.g. Batman or James Bond. For a mere three years after Meiko Kaji showed her sting as Nami, the studio reset the series, giving it a new director, new (and much more talkative) lead actress, and returning Nami Matsushima to a happy, criminal record-free young women, with a loving boyfriend. Except, of course, he turns out not to love her quite as much. Things start to collapse after her sister uncovers evidence of major government corruption, and passes it to Nami, shortly before being kidnapped. After Nami uncovers the truth – her sister is killed and she is framed for the murder, with the help of her boyfriend, and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Initially an easy mark for the tough girls in her cell, Nami soon develops her mean streak. And she’s going to need it, because the politician behind it all is looking to tidy up the loose end she represents, by killing her and making the death look like a suicide. Name turns the tables, in incendiary fashion, and it’s clear that she’s one loose end that won’t be quietly disposed of.

Y’know how On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a really great Bond film, with a crappy Bond, Lazenby being the merest shadow of Connery? That’s the situation we have here. The film would be perfectly serviceable, but with every (largely superfluous) word, gesture and action, the viewer can’t help but be reminded of Kaji, who simply fits the character being depicted here, far better. Not that Takigawa is a bad actress. It is just that Kaji made such a strong impression in the role, anyone else playing the character is almost bound to seem like a pale imitation in comparison. Without Kaji or the surrealist touches brought to the previous entries by Shunya Ito, there really isn’t much to distinguish this from the rougher end of the pinku genre, with Kohira appearing to take particular interest in the rape.

The sections after Nami breaks out are the best, in terms of style, and it’s hard to put your finger on any problems: “competent” is likely a good word for this. But probably the most damning indictment, is that I watched the film, wrote most of the review, and then realized almost nothing about the second half had stuck in my mind at all. I ended up having to pull the movie up, just to convince myself I hadn’t been called away to dinner half-way through or something. I hadn’t: it had just failed to make any significant impression on me.

Dir: Yutaka Kohira
Star: Yumi Takigawa, Ryoko Ema, Nobuo Kaneko, Ichiro Nakaya

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Grudge Song

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★★★
“Can Sasori escape the hangman’s noose and live happily ever after?”

Nami (Kaji) is about to get married, but her wedding day is rudely interrupted by the arrival of the cops, who arrest her. On the way to prison (and, unsurprisingly, death row, given the body count left behind in the previous three movies), she takes out the driver, causing a crash. The injured Scorpion staggers away, and is rescued by Kudo (Tamura), a former political radical who was brutalized by the police for his actions, and so has a massive load of resentment against them. After being informed of Kudo’s harbouring of Nami by a worked at the sex-club where he works, the cops take him in: and use both physical and psychological torture to try and make him give up her location. Eventually arrested, Nami is sentenced to death, but the cops intend to make sure the time leading up to her execution is as unpleasant and possible, and the detective in charge, Hirose (Tsukata), is intent on making even Nami’s death as lonely an experience as possible.

“Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” Michael Corleone’s quote from Godfather III seems appropriate here, as it appears Nami was preparing to settle down to a normal life, difficult though it is to see her as a happy housewife. Of course, the cops won’t let it lie, and so begins another cycle of revenge. As in the previous entry, it’s less Nami’s vengeance than her associate’s, at least initially, as we discover Kudo has as much, if not more, reason to hate the police as she does. The final section, however, returns to its roots, with Nami back in prison and having to handle hostility, not only from the police but the guards, though by this time, she has at least attained near-legendary status among the other prisoners, as you’d expect. Doesn’t stop her screwing with another prisoner, who appears to be calmly awaiting her fate: the point of that seemed kinda lost, and unnecessarily cruel.

The last of the series in which Kaji starred, it was also the only one of her four movies not directed by Ito. His replacement, Hasebe, is competent enough, but only rarely brings the same sense of style to proceedings. Kaji is as worth watching as ever, but for too long, she seems like a supporting character in her own movie, with the focus more on Kudo. Chalk up another win for misleading advertising though, as Nami certainly does not use the long rifle with which she is pictured on the DVD sleeve (right).

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable

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★★★
“Because a baby is for life – even if the Yakuza think otherwise. “

When this begins, Nami (Kaji) is on the run, and slices the arm off Detective Kondo (Narita) after he handcuffs himself to her. She befriends street hooker Yuki (Watanabe), who runs foul of the locak Yakuza gang by turning tricks on their turn, while trying to care for her brain-damaged brother, whom she also services sexually, to stop him from raping women(!). After Nami is involved in the death of a gang member who was blackmailing her, the gang’s madam Katsu (Lee), who knew the Scorpion from her own prison days, captures her, locking our heroine up in a literal big bird-cage. But after the true horror of the Yakuza’s treatment of their women is revealed (it starts with a golf-club going where no golf-club should ever go), Nami escapes and carves a bloody path of revenge on those responsible. When Katsu realizes what’s going on, she turns herself in to the police, figuring jail will be safe from Sasori’s wrath. Take a wild stab in the dark… Which, by coincidence is exactly what Katsu deserves.

There are some angles to this I liked. For instance, the way that Nami is taking revenge here, less for herself – really, she gets off pretty lightly, in comparison to the previous two installments – than for others. I also enjoyed the way she… Well, I’m reluctant to spoil it, but let’s just say, she takes care of Katsu and Kondo without getting her hands dirty. However, the positives are largely balanced out by Yuki, who is one of the more irritating and pointless creatures in cinematic history. Her life appears to be a litany of bad choices, and the film seems to realize how tiresome she is: in the second half, she’s largely relegated to flicking lit matches into the sewer where Nami is hiding out (in a fetching blue dress, it has to be said).

This would be Ito’s last entry in the series: he’d later go on to direct Gray Sunset, which beat out Kurosawa’s Ran to become Japan’s official Academy Award entry for the Foreign Film category in 1985. He seems to have reined in some of his more stylish visual excesses here, which is a bit of a shame, as that’s one of theings which helped elevate this series above the level of generic exploitation. This certainly delivers on the sleaze front [yet could be seen as pro-life, an interesting combo!], but at least in the first half, doesn’t have a great deal more to offer.

Dir: Shunya Ito
Star: Meiko Kaji, Mikio Narita, Yayoi Watanabe, Reisen Lee