Tag: crime

Wandering Ginza Butterfly

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★★
“More suited for ‘Cuties with Cues’ than this site.”

Nami is sent to jail for killing a Yakuza boss, and when she is released, returns to the Ginza district of Tokyo to live with her uncle, who runs a pool hall. She gets a job as a hostess in a bar, with the help of her new friend Ryuji (Watase), but the quiet life doesn’t last for long, even as she tries to help the widow of the man she killed – whose petition on behalf of Nami is what helped lead to her early release. For the local mob, in the shape of Okada (Nanbara) and his gang, are sniffing around the bar, seeking to take it over. To settle things, Nami offers to take on Okada’s champion at billiards, a challenge the gangster readily accepts, not realizing he has just been hustled, and that Nami is no mean player herself. Can she win – and even if she does, will Okada live up to his side of the bet?

While certainly fitting in to the overall themes of the genre, with a significant emphasis on revenge and its execution, this is another entry which downplays the more exploitative angles in favor of the dramatic elements. Put another way, if you want tits ‘n’ gore, look elsewhere. If, however, you want ten minutes of billiards with your heroine unconvincingly trying to imitate Paul Newman in The Hustler [a film whose poster can be seen lurking in the background during the match], this will be right up your alley. It’s only at the finale that this delivers; with the ever-loyal Ryuji at her side, Nami ploughs into the Yakuza gang’s HQ, to interrupt their group porno viewing, by releasing some of their other body fluids.

While Kaji possesses some undeniable presence, the script doesn’t live up to expectations, meandering off in directions that prove neither necessary nor interesting, and the billiards match – even with its bizarre drug-withdrawal subplot – is a poor substitute for action. The film was (inexplicably) successful enough commercially to lead to a sequel, which includes Sonny Chiba playing a comedic pimp – I sense this is likely not the best use of his talents, and won’t exactly be rushing to include it in this article.

Dir: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Star: Meiko Kaji, Tsunehiko Watase, Koji Nanbara, Tatsuo Umemiya

The Assassin Next Door

  By

★★★½
“The Professionaless.”

Galia is a sex-slave, kept in captivity in an Israeli brothel. After a failed escape-bid, she is told she has one chance to get back to Russia and be reunited with her daughter: kill an enemy of the man holding her hostage. This she does, but one murder becomes another, with the lure of getting her passport returned and freedom being used to keep her working, just as when she was a prostitute. But at least she has some freedom, and moves into an apartment opposite Elinor (Tayeb), who has problems of her own, in the shape of an abusive husband. The two women bond, both sharing dreams of escaping their violence-plagued lives. However, acting on those dreams is unlikely to be easy, with the men in their lives unlikely just to let them walk.

Kurylenko is likely familiar from her role as a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace, but this is a good deal darker. Indeed, if you’re expecting an action-packed treat, this will probably disappoint: except for the final 20 minutes or so, it’s far more of a character piece, depicting a pair of damaged souls and the comfort they find in each other’s company (which teeters on the edge of Sapphic at one point before, probably wisely, stepping back – not soon enough to avoid Chris’s sarcasm entirely, however!). Not all of this works, including a lengthy trip to some kind of religious bath-house which, frankly, seems purely an excuse to see Kurylenko undress. The good news is that the performances are solid enough to make this kitchen-sink drama hold up, and when there is action, Lerner delivers it well, in particular an assassination attempt in a night-club which features some impressively Palma-esque camerawork (and is our video of the month for this update).

The film does leave some troubling questions: how, exactly, did Galia go from being a mother in the Ukraine, albeit one with issues but who does love her daughter, to being locked up in Israel? I know this isn’t the focus of the film, yet it would seem to be a crucial issue that needs addressing. However, the flaws are largely overcome by the strength of the acting, and when things kick into high-gear for the final confrontations, it delivers, with a shoot-out on a bus that is an impressive bit of close quarters film-making. Manage your genre expectations with this one, and you won’t be disappointed.

Dir: Danny Lerner
Star: Olga Kurylenko, Ninet Tayeb, Zohar Shtrauss, Liron Levo
a.k.a. Kirot

Touch and Go

  By

★★★
“Nice opening, solid middle… Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

This 1980 film was originally called Friday the Thirteenth, but went through a title change in production, after they discovered some other film with that title being made… No hockey-masks to be seen here: instead, it’s the story of three young women, Eva (Hughes), Fiona (Contouri) and Millicent (Duncan), who start robbing places, largely for amusement – they donate the proceedings to an orphanage. However, after one of their victims ends up making far more money than they do, thanks to a bogus insurance claim, they switch targets and set their sights on a bigger fish, in the shape of a luxury hotel which contains a bank, jewellery store and other treats. This requires expanding their team, but with larger hauls come larger risks, as they find out, even once the actual crime has been carried out.

As a light, frothy Ozploitation and distaff take on something like Ocean’s 11, it’s aimiable viewing, bubbling along on the charisma of its leading ladies – one a locksmith, another a bored housewife, the third a children’s radio presenter. In contrast, the men are not exactly the sharpest tools in the box, easily manipulated, even the policeman that Millicent is dating. The main issue is a plot which has the heist taking place somewhere near the middle of the film, when it should probably have been the climax. It’s a nicely-put together extended sequence, but the post-heist antics are easily the least interesting aspect of proceedings, sliding into borderline farce.

The performances are pretty good, even Hughes as a slacker gardener – I say “even”, since he was better known as a singer-songwriter, still fairly well-known down under, and also did the film’s soundtrack. Hughes is the likely standout, and has gone on to have a solid career in film and TV [she played the aristocratic woman with whom Phoebe Cates came to stay in Princess Caraboo]. She and her co-stars keep this a fluffy confection that, while dated, has not been too badly crippled by the passage of three decades. Well, not nearly as much as the unfortunate scripting which leaves the viewer feeling almost like they’re watching the reels out of order.

Dir: Peter Maxwell
Star: Wendy Hughes, Chantal Contouri, Carmen Duncan, Jon English

The Yakuza Wives

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★★★½
“Could comfortably kick the asses of The Mob Wives.”

Perhaps a better title, however, would be Yakuza Sister, since this is a tale of two siblings. Tamaki (Iwashita) is an actual mid-level Yakuza wife, who is running their branch of the gang in the jailed absence of her husband, and doing quite well at it, enhancing its size and reputation. She is largely estranged from both her sister Makoto (Kitase) and their father – she’s a bartender, he works in his machine shop, but it’s clear from the get-go that his time is limited [this isn’t much of a spoiler when you see him coughing his lungs out while simultaneously chain-smoking]. Two things upset their semi-orderly lives. The overall head of Tamaki’s clan dies, opening up a power vacuum which sets off a struggle between rival factions, and Tamaki attempts to arrange a ‘suitable’ marriage for her sister. Makoto rebels, taking up instead with Kiyoshi Sugita (Sera) – which is unfortunate, because he’s a loyal member of the faction now battling Tamaki’s group for control.

The first in a long-running series of films, both direct sequels and knock-offs of the basic concept, this is somewhere between The Godfather and a soap-opera. Among the things I apparently learned from this were, that in Japan, organized crime syndicates have press-conferences to detail leadership changes, and that the best way to get a Japanese women to marry you, is to rape her. Who knew? [Legal note: GirlsWithGuns.org does not make any claims regarding the reliability of this information, and accepts no responsibility for any damages, prosecutions or severed digits resulting from acting on it.] It’s a bit of an uncomfortable mix, but the steely-gaze of Iwashita and her character’s single-minded dedication to the cause is impeccable: she’s a better female character than anyone in Coppola’s trilogy.

Things head towards their expected tragic outcome, but there are a few twists along the way, as well as an interesting cat-fight between the two sisters, when Makoto opts for her husband over her family. About five minutes in duration, there’s only about three cuts as they brawl their way around the apartment, in and out of the closet, before collapsing, exhausted. If not exactly a martial-arts epic, it’s an interesting stylistic choice, quite unlike anything else I’ve seen, and is presented for your viewing below. If a little low on the action quotient outside of this, it’s a solid piece of drama that should keep the spectator interested.

The player will show in this paragraph

Bail Enforcers

  By

★★½
“Insert “Can’t get no Stratus-faction” pun here.”

The films put out starring WWE wrestlers are a bit of a mixed bag: some are mindlessly entertaining, while others are near unwatchable. And much the same goes for their Diva’s division: some are actually good wrestlers, others are clearly chosen for their looks. Stratus does probably fall into the former category, but this doesn’t do her adequate justice, and top-billing is probably a bit of a stretch – she’s held hostage more than she kicks ass. She plays Jules, one of three bounty-hunters, who pick up a guy that suggests a deal: let him go, and he’ll point them to a wanted man with a $100,000 reward. They accept, but when taking the guy in, get a call from mob boss Hal Lambino (Rafla) who offers them one million dollars if they deliver the bail-jumper to him instead. Needless to say, the transaction doesn’t go smoothly.

Stratus isn’t bad, especially considering this is her feature debut. However, cinematic fighting isn’t the same thing as fighting the WWE, and it shows: bounty hunters shouldn’t be using flying scissors and hurricanranas – it takes the viewer completely out of the scenario they are trying to build. To be honest, in that department, Stratus is entirely outclassed by Andrea James Lui, who plays one of Lambino’s heavies, and is impressive in every action scene she has – the two fights the pair have against each other, including a confined-space battle in an ambulance, showcase the difference in styles nicely. If you think Stratus looks better, you’re clearly a fan.

The main problem beyond this is a tired storyline, with aspects that should simply have been strangled at birth. For example, Jules working as a waitress in a strip-club, which is purely an excuse to get her into a schoolgirl uniform, serving no point otherwise. Fortunately, Chris has bailed for Facebook poker on seeing the words “Trish Stratus” – her tolerance for WWE Divas is close to zero – or the sarcasm levels in the room might have bordered on the lethal. There are ooccasionally moments of levity, mostly from Phillips; it’s worth sticking around for the end credits, to see some of the alternative takes unleashed. However, there’s little here which isn’t familiar, and between the brawls, it doesn’t do enough to hold the viewer’s attention.

Dir: Patrick McBrearty
Star: Trish Stratus, Boomer Phillips, Frank J. Zupancic, Joe Rafla
a.k.a. Bounty Hunters

The Deadly Angels

  By

★★½
“At the risk of repeating myself, poster not necessarily representative of movie contents.”

Inspired though the alternate titling of The Bod Squad might be, the original title likely gives a better idea of the inspiration for this 1977 Shaw Brothers flick: think Charlie’s rather than deadly. Three women, from Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, under the orders of Bosley Scotland Yard’s Miss Eve (Kraft, known to cult fans from Mighty Peking Man), go undercover in a night-club. Girls from there have been recruited to smuggle out of Hong Kong the proceeds from a series of brutal jewel robberies – the previous couriers all turn up stabbed to death after delivering the goods. However, the agents turn out to be a bit crap at the whole undercover thing, and the bad guys are none too happy to discover undercover operatives in their midst.

The main problem is, this takes way to long to get to the action. Outside of a pretty decent training sequence, there’s very little to speak of for the first hour. The film tries to make up in sex, what it doesn’t deliver in violence, with plenty of nudity and coercive sex, but the only point of note is an impressive death by fire extinguisher, inflicted on a witness by the chief villain’s main squeeze (Shaw Yin Yin, one of the decade’s leading erotic actresses in Hong Kong).

Things do perk up in the final reel, with a series of pretty decent battles, in which the girls take on a host of minions, with a little help from Li (Liu), whose father was the one who got “extinguished” (and who, like most Hong Kong martial artists of the time, appears to be trying to channel the very busy spirit of the late Bruce Lee). The agents also have some neat gadgets, such as a belt-buckle that become a spiked yo-yo kind of weapon, a folding cross-bow and a hair scrunchie which forms part of an explosive slingshot. More of these being put to use, and less of victims being slapped around, would have upped the entertainment quotient. You can see the influence this would have on 80’s entries in the genre, but at this point, we’re still talking “barely crawled out of the sea” in evolutionary terms.

Dir: Hun Choi, Hsueh Li Pao
Star: Nancy Yen, Dana, Liu Yang, Evelyn Kraft

Mama’s Dirty Girls

  By

★★½
“Poster not necessarily representative of movie contents.”

While the title suggests something inspired by Corman’s Big Bad Mama, this is a contemporary tale which, in some ways, is actually closer to Faster Pussycat. It has a great deal more nudity, right from the opening scene in which Becky (Rialson) stares into a mirror, and puts on her bikini-top… very… slowly… However, the titular Mama (Grahame) is nowhere near the level of Varla, and the movie feels more like a pale imitation, despite the additional breasts.

Mama Love is a ‘black widow’, who travels the country, finding rich, eligible men whom she marries and then disposes of – in the first case we see, faking her husband’s suicide after using Becky to lure him into a compromising situation. Moving on, they stop at a motel owned by Harold (Lambert), whose wife recently died, apparently making him an ideal target for Mama’s wiles. She poses as a rich widow, travelling cross-country while she waits for her inheritance to be settled, and marriage soon follows, but that’s where things get sticky.

For it turns out Harold is a ‘black widower’, having killed his previous spouse and made it look like she drowned. Having exchanged wills leaving each other the beneficiary, both he and Mama ach now believe the other to be rich, and are out to collect. Meanwhile, one daughter has fallen for the local sheriff, helping him out of his loveless marriage in the only way she knows how, by killing his wife, and the motel’s sub-normal handyman has his eye on another daughter. It all eventually snowballs, into Harold taking a hostage and running for the hills, with Mama, the sheriff and everyone else in hot pursuit.

The makers are a good deal more interested in sex than violence, as far as exploitation goes. If I’d been directing this, I’d have turned the second half into a blackly-humourous War of the Roses story, with Mama and Harold going to ever more extreme lengths to collect. As is, the cast are generally a cut above the usual – if well short of Tura Satana and her crew – but they are largely stuck in a storyline that doesn’t have sufficient content, and delivers what it has with less than adequate energy to make this memorable.

Dir: John Hayes
Star: Gloria Grahame, Paul Lambert, Sondra Currie, Candice Rialson

Stand Off

  By

★★★½
“Reservoir Bitches“

A series of bank raids has local police baffled: ‘The Executives’ specialize in slick, swift in and outs, never over-reaching themselves. They’re also very well-dressed, which might actually be a clue, since these four robbers are women, under veteran criminal Fox (Evans). But all is not well in this gang of thieves, with some seeking a bigger score. Matters come to a head when they find a cop (Lombardi) nosing around their headquarters, and a tracking device attached to their van – all signs point to an informant within the gang, Is someone seeking to take over from Fox? Or is Fox herself tired of her accomplices? Let the accusations – and the bullets – fly.

The obvious touchstone can be found in the brief summary above, though clocking in at a crisp 61 minutes, the script does avoid the rambling on about tipping, the meaning of Madonna songs and the other verbal diarrhea which bog just about all of Tarantino’s scripts down. It’s ironic – presumably deliberately – that the Executives explicitly state they take inspiration from the likes of Point Break, while appearing to be blissfully ignorant of the closest parallel for their actual situation. I note that Notarile’s Blinky Productions, as well as original films, make fan films using characters such as Daredevil or Snake Plissken. This feels a little too close to a fan tribute to Reservoir Dogs; given my general skepticism over Tarantino (Kill Bill 1 aside), that’s a mixed blessing.

However, there’s still plenty to enjoy here, even for a Quentinophobe like myself. Notarile has a very good eye for action, directing it with a crisp efficiency that clearly captures what’s going on, generating tension and urgency. The bank-robbery which opens proceedings, for instance, would not be out of place in any Hollywood movie, it’s that slick. Similarly, the gunplay never succumbs to the sloppily-shot mentality, where the only way to figure out what’s going on, is to count the bodies afterwards and see who’s missing. The performances are also solid, with Evans and Santiago the most impressive, though all the characters are drawn and fleshed out effectively.

On the down side, there’s some plot holes that stood out. For instance, why do the gang simply dump the cop in a room, not bothering to handcuff him to anything? And why does he attach a tracker to the van? He has an informant, just ask her where their hide-out is. Something also felt fractionally “off” about the editing of the dialogue. The pacing and rhythm was sometimes weird, as if the conversations were spliced together from multiple different takes, and as a result, don’t always flow as they should.

All told, however, these are small quibbles, and the bottom line is: we enjoyed it. Someone should give Blinky enough money for a proper movie – but I suspect, Notarile will likely keep on making films, whether anyone does or not! I’ll be looking out for them.

[Director Chris Notarile emailed us to say, “The reason why the tracking device was on the van at all was pretty simple. It was part of Cole’s plan. If he were to call the cops in, and ______ (spoiler!) was going to be his informant, it would be best if he made it look as official as possible. A tracking device seemed cooler than him just randomly knowing or popping up. As for him being locked up, the girls didn’t think he’d break free the first time, but he did – thus Fox cuffed him the second time.]

Dir: Chris R. Notarile
Star: Mandy Evans, Kim Santiago, Kerri Miller, Roberto Lombardi

Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams

  By

★★
“Not very delinquent, and certainly not much of a boss.”

This was my first true vintage “pinky violence” movie, though I had bumped against some fringe entries in the genre before e.g. Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, which I enjoyed and really must get round to reviewing for here some time. This one…not so much. It focuses on Rika (Oshida), who gets out of reform school, and gets a job as a ‘companion’ at a bar, where most of the girls have a similarly troubled background. The local Yakuza boss is sniffing around, and his path crosses Rika’s after she (semi-unwittingly) helps a colleague steal some drugs from them. As a result, the house mother/bar owner, is on the hook for three million yen, plus interest.

It’s hard to say exactly why I found this so disappointing. I did like Oshida’s performance, as she has a kind of breezy delinquence that carries the film. However, most of the other characters (particularly the men) are little more than caricatures: witness the comic-relief gay character, while the Yakuza boss could have strayed straight from a Victorian melodrama, if only he had twirled his moustache a bit more. The plot doesn’t go anywhere interesting, capping itself off with a battle in a pachinko parlour 0 and even here, the owner has to call on male help, in the shape of the man who murdered her father, but is now very, very sorry about it…

Including action sequences that are largely lamely staged and executed (the director would do a lot better when he got someone who could actually fight, like Sue Shiomi), plus just enough nudity to make Chris tut disapprovingly, without actually providing any cheap thrills, this looks and feels every one of its forty years. I suppose this might be the point, for a certain audience. But it fell far enough short of expectations that I was left suddenly rethinking my plans to have an entire section of the site dedicated to pinky violence.

Dir: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Star: Reiko Oshida, Tatsuo Umemiya, Yukie Kagawa, Bokuzen Hidari
a.k.a. Tokyo Bad Girls

Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom

  By

★★★★
“Or, as Chris called it, ‘Lynch Law Lolitas’…”

This was the title that finally ‘broke’ Chris, and she wondered what the hell I was Googling to come across this movie. Shame she missed it, as despite some rather nasty sexual sadism, it’s among the best of the genre. Girl gang leader Noriko (Sugimoto) is assigned to the “School of Hope”, a morally-bankrupt educational establishment for delinquent girls. It’s principal is entirely ineffectual, and it’s actually run by the vice-principal (Imai), with the collaboration of the “Disciplinary Committee,” a group of the girls he allows to dish out punishment. Noriko isn’t going to stand for that, and teams up with a sleazy journalist (Watase) to bring down both the Committee and those in charge.

Right from the opening scene, where the Committee drain the blood of a victim, before she falls to her death from the roof, this certainly grabs the attention. Another review described it as, “Like Mean Girls via Caged Heat as written by Jess Franco and directed by Russ Meyer,” and that’s about as accurate a synopsis as you’ll get. The girls – not just ‘Noriko of the Cross’ [which she has tattooed on her inner thigh], but also “Razor-blade Remi” and the members of the Committee – are undeniably hardcore, and not the kind of people you want to cross. Yet, other sequences are outright misogynistic, such as one pupil being punished by having a light-bulb inserted into her, then being forced to do push-ups. Where did that come from? There’s also a lengthy omorashi fetish sequence. Look it up. Could have done without it as well.

But if you can get past that – not that I would blame you if you couldn’t – the good stuff outweighs the bad. You can even read a socio-political subtext into this, as the early seventies were a time of political instability in Japan, with their Red Army group in operation. The main theme is power: the struggle to achieve or hold on to it, and the final ten minutes, with the entire school rioting and taking on the Japanese police with rocks, stick and other weapons is pretty much a middle finger at all authority. Almost all such structures are portrayed as rife with corruption, and if the male side of the species is not subject to the same level of brutality, they’re cynically depicted as relentlessly perverted and driven by their brains. The only honour or humanity to be found here is with Noriko and her allies, in a severely screwed-up world, and it’s this transgressive approach that deserves approval.

Dir: Norifumi Suzuki
Star: Miki Sugimoto, Reiko Ike, Tsunchiko Watase, Kenji Imai