Tag: pinky

Big Bad Sis

  By

★★★
“Social soap with some punch.”

Despite this being from Hong Kong, I’m actually tagging this one in the “Pinky” category, because in a lot of ways, it feels closer to a pinky violence movie from Japan, being basically the story of a posse of bad girls. Except, this being Hong Kong in the seventies, where even juvenile delinquents were expected to hold down a responsible job. In the case of Fung Ying (Ping), this is working in a massive garment shop. It feels almost like prison labour, not least because of various predatory types, to whom Fung takes exception, becoming an unofficial shop steward. It helps she’s a bit of a bad girl herself, a former gang member.

She teams up with a couple of colleagues, and starts helping her co-workers solve their problems. For instance, one girl has been forced into prostitution to pay off her brother’s gambling debts, or another who was dumped by her sleazy boyfriend after she got pregnant (once you get past the first five minutes, there’s a theme here that, if not all men are scum, all scum are men). Needless to say, Fung’s past comes back to haunt her. The factory owner, who I guess is fairly decent as sweatshop proprietors go, is subject to a hostile takeover attempt by her old boss Dai Goa (Hsieh). When Fung derails this, he’s none too happy, and kidnaps her with the intention of burning her alive.

The middle of this is rather too much social drama for my tastes: if Ken Loach was to make a martial arts movie, the end result might be something like this. Fung and her allies seem more concerned with social equity, forming a union to fight against the exploitation of the working classes, sexist men, and so on. Not quite what I expected from a Shaw Brothers production in the mid-seventies. It all comes off as a bit earnest, though the copious nudity – all female, naturally – makes it a little difficult to accept fully any messages of feminist empowerment. It does, however, act as a lovely time-capsule of Hong Kong in that era, in every area from hairdressing through to home decoration.

While well-made, it’s a bit dull until the end. Fung’s kidnapping is followed by a rescue attempt, which leads to a massive extended brawl on a building site, that’s as good as I’ve seen from any heroine of the era. This takes full advantage of the environment, Fung swinging a shovel as if born to it. Naturally, violence cannot be seen to prevail, so this ends in the moralistic style you would, with the authorities – notable by their absence to this point – showing up. Fung and her old pal Shing (Chen) take responsibility for their actions, and are led off to the cheers of their workmates. This finale goes a long way to redeem things, though it’s still guilty of putting its message before the mayhem.

Dir: Chung Sun
Star: Ping Chen, Chung Wang, Chen Kuan-Tai, Hsieh Wang

13 Steps of Maki: The Young Aristocrats

  By

★★★½
“Light pink(y)”

Made by Toei, this is very much a straightforward “pinky violence” film in concept, telling the story of the Wildcats and, in particular, their leader Maki Hyuga. What separates this – in ways both good and bad – from the pack is that Maki is played by Sue Shiomi, best known for her roles in the Sister Streetfighter series of films. That means the action in this is considerably improved on the typical pinky violence movie, with Shiomi capable of holding her own, even when fighting many opponents. In particular, her skills with a pair of nunchaku is a sight to behold. The scenario here provides plenty of opportunities for her to show all her abilities off.

However, the downside is that Shiomi is simply too “good” to play a bad girl. When you put her beside the titans of the genre, like Meiko Kaji or Reiko Ike, Shiomi just does not have the necessary edge to succeed as the leader of an all-female gang of delinquents. Any group led by Shiomi would, I feel, be more likely to sell you cookies or help old ladies across the road, than beat you up and take your lunch money. It’s notable that, while this is certainly not short on the nudity required in the field, Shiomi remains firmly attached to her clothes. Others take care of this onerous duty, with the heroine instead providing the second half of the sex ‘n’ violence recipe.

The story sees Maki running foul of Yakuza chief Ryunosuke Daimon (Nawa) after rescuing a girl from his white slavery operation, and also annoying rich bitch Takako Ebihara (Ohara). Their revenge ends in Maki being framed and sent to prison, while the rest of her gang get hooked on smack by Daimon, and turned into compliant slaves. However, she gets help from an unexpected quarter, in the form of Daimon’s top bodyguard Tetsuya Eto (Nanjô), an honourable ex-boxer who grows increasingly unhappy with his boss’s sleazy business practices. Takako is also unimpressed when she discovers she’s going to be married off to Daimon, whether she wants to be or not. That comes after he has blown up Takako’s father with a car-bomb.

Things unfold as you’d expect. Maki wins the respect of her cell-mates, breaks out and, with Tetsuya are her back, storms the headquarters of Daimon’s yakuza clan, just as he is in the process of getting married to Takako. She’s not there to bring the gang boss a toaster or some nice crockery. If almost entirely predictable, the presence of Shiomi, and resulting upgrade in the quality of the fight sequences does make it feel relatively fresh in style – just not in content. The main factor which stops it reaching the top tier for the genre is the sense Shiomi is almost cos-playing as a bad girl, something you never doubted with the Queens of Pinky Violence. There’s good reason she only dabbled in this field.

Dir: Makoto Naitô
Star:Etsuko Shihomi, Misa Ohara, Tatsuya Nanjô, Hiroshi Nawa

The Glorious Asuka Gang!

  By

★★★
“Red Nose Day?”

Dir: Yôichi Sai
Star: Miho Tsumiki, Yôko Kikuchi, Kumiko Takeda, Mikari

This is based on a 34-volume manga series by Satosumi Takaguchi, which began publication in 1985. It is far from the only adaptation. There have also been two OVAs, a live-action drama series, a different feature version made in 2009, and even a pair of drama CDs. This feature, however, is the only one available in the West to date with subtitles. It takes place at an indeterminate point in the future – the year is given as 199X – when “the streets are overflowing with drugs and violence”. There’s a battle for control, which conveniently seems to be along gender lines. The unfortunately naned male “Red Nose Gods”, under boss Toki Masamune, are going up against the all-girl Hibari Group. They are named after their leader (Mikari), who speaks only through her lieutenant, or with the aid of an artificial voice-box.

Out heroine, Asuka (Tsumiki), has just peeled off from Hibari, along with her best friend Miko (Kikuchi), seeking to make their own way on the streets. They quickly gain the enmity of the Red Nose Gods, but more troubling, is that Hibari has ordered Yoko (Takeda) to kill them both. For Yoko is Miko’s sister. This is established quite quickly, and the rest of the movie is various shenanigans as the two groups struggle for power, while the local corrupt police run interference on their own agenda. Will there be betrayal, plotting and heavy use of a Rolling Stones song? The answer is yes, to all three elements.

This feels like it ought to be a straight-to-video title, of which there was no shortage around the time this came out (1988). But the production values are considerably better than normally present in that kind of thing. The cost of merely licensing the Stones’s Satisfaction would have exceeded the entire budget of many V-cinema entries. There are also some quite spectacular sets built to represent “New Kabuki Town”, after the apparent near-collapse of normal society, and the photography is positively theatrical in quality. If you’d told me this was a Japanese remake of Streets of Fire, I would have believed you. Elements like Hibari’s voice-box indicate there was a decent amount of thought put into the various elements too.

So why is it… kinda dull? Or at least, it seems like it should be considerably more exciting. While there are occasional upticks in energy, it feels considerably more chatty than I wanted. Yoko, in particular, seems to act in ways that defy any kind of internal logic, yet are necessary to propel the narrative forward. What is her motivation? What, indeed, is anyone trying to accomplish? For a time, it looks as if Asuka is seeking to take over from Hibari, or replace Toki. This all goes away quite quickly, left by the wayside, and leaving a vacuum in terms of character goals. It ends instead in a straightforward duel between Asuka and Yoko, and there’s a definite sense that, once the dust settles, nothing much will have changed. Maybe that’s the point.

Bad Girl Mako

  By

★★½
“‘Slightly naughty young lady Mako’ – more accurate, less catchy.”

This was among the very last of the “pinky violence” films made by the Nikkatsu studio. Their popularity had been waning, and the company, under its president Takashi Itamochi, opted to move in a different direction. They began making what would be known as “roman porno”, leaving the action field open for their rivals at Toei, who picked up Meiko Kaji after her “defection” from Nikkatsu where she had made the Stray Cat Rock series.

I mention all the above, largely because it’s a hundred or so less words I have to write about this, which is one of the more forgettable of their “bad girl” films. While made competently enough, you sense that the heart of the director, making his feature debut, wasn’t particular in it, and title actress Natsu is a poor substitute for Kaji. It begins briskly enough, Mako and her girl gang pals beating up a guy at a bowling alley after he welches on a bet. While visiting a disco, she meets and pretends to fall for Hideo (Okazaki), in what’s really the set-up for a robbery. However, it turns out he has a gang of his own, and thus begins an escalating conflict.

Things are exacerbated by Mako’s brother, Tanabe (Fuji), being a member of the local Yakuza clan, the Yasuoka-Gumi – y’know, the real criminals in town. So for example, after Hideo gets a knife in his leg, he and his mates pay a visit to a Yasuoka-Gumi brothel, and liberate some of their workers. But Mako is also falling for Hideo, a relationship which might as well be wearing a neon sign flashing “doomed”, because he continues to incur the wrath of her brother and the Yakuza bosses. If you manage to predict that the film will end on a close-up of Mako’s face, until a single tear rolls down her cheek, give yourself two points.

It’s a rare moment of artistry in what is, by and large, a rather pedestrian production. From our viewpoint, it needed to concentrate more on Mako, and less on the tit-for-tat shenanigans between Tanabe and Hideo. While she kicks off that storyline, she then largely gets sidelined for much of the picture, until the deaths of various characters (of both sexes) bring her back into play for the final 15-20 minutes. In her absence, the film doesn’t have much to offer, except for low-level thugs snarling at each other, though some of the seventies style on view, in both music and fashion, is not unamusing.

I saw a review of this which said it was, “Obviously a political allegory about the tragic end of the Japanese student movement in the 60s.” Ah. That explains a lot. It being a topic about which I know precious little and care considerably less, would likely go a long way towards determining why this one left me largely underwhelmed.

Dir: Koretsugu Kurahara
Star: Junko Natsu. Jiro Okazaki, Tatsuya Fuji, Joe Shishido

Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2: She-Cat Gambler

  By

★★★
“Goddess of gamblers.”

wgb2Nami (Kaji) – or, to give her character’s full name here, Nami the Crimson Cherry Blossom – is still the same ice-cold, vengeful warrior as before. Though for this sequel, for some reason, she has switched to rather more traditional attire, in the shape of a kimono. She encounters Hanae, trying to escape a Yakuza sex-trafficking gang, to whom she has been sold by her father(!). Nami rescues her, subsequently wins Hanae’s freedom in a card game, and returns her to Dad. Turns out he can shed some light on Hoshiden, the man who killed Nami’s own father in a gambling spat, years earlier, and for whom she has been searching ever since. To find her target, Nami needs to embed herself deep in the murky, Ginza world of gambling and prostitution, helped by former friend Miyoko (Kagawa), now part of Hoshiden’s organization, and rival pimp, Ryu (Chiba).

This is slightly better than its predecessor, though is still hampered by too much reliance on gambling. It doesn’t help that the cards here are not the ones familiar in the West. As a result, we only know how the game is going by the reaction of the participants. Imagine watching Casino Royale with no idea of how poker works. It’s like that. When not actually gambling, things improve, and interesting to see Chiba play somewhat against type. Ryu is more stammering comic relief than the typical Chiba hero, though this dates from 1972, a couple of years before his star-making role in The Street Fighter.

As in its predecessor, this isn’t exactly action-packed. The opening confrontation, between Nami and the Yakuza gang on the bridge, looks like it’s about to explode… Right up until she pulls a gun. That’s not exactly very samurai (or geisha), is it, Ms. Kaji? From there until Nami and Ryu storm Hoshiden’s headquarters, it’s restrained, with more drama than swordplay. However, it is better at sustaining interest than part one, helped by aspects such as Ryu’s noble approach to prostitution. As he says, “We don’t force you or watch what you do. Our motto is clean, virtuous and classy,” prompting the sarcastic retort from one of his whores, “Well, you sound like Governor Minobe!” [The socialist governor of Tokyo at that time]

These elements help tide viewers over the card-playing scenes, until all sword-swinging hell finally breaks loose. This is rather at odds with some of the broad stabs at humour previously attempted. The “how to use a bidet demonstration” scene sticks in my mind there, and not exactly as an iconic sequence of comedy. It doesn’t sit easily in a storyline kicked off when a daughter is sold into sex slavery by her own father, and the ending of the series with this entry suggests the intended market was equally unimpressed.

Dir: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
Star: Meiko Kaji, Sonny Chiba, Junzaburo Ban, Yukie Kagawa

Rica 3: Juvenile Lullaby

  By

★★
“Carry On Raping”

rica3The third and last installment depicting the adventures of mixed-blood juvenile delinquent Rica (Aoki), has very much run out of ideas and is playing out the string: it’s no surprise the series ended here, all but taking Aoki’s career with it. As in the previous installment, it starts off with her confined to Aiyu Reform School, but it isn’t long before she has busted out. The storyline here focuses again on her half-black friend Hanako, whose daughter has run away. Unfortunately, she has actually been abducted by a gang, who are selling her on to a Western pornographer, who will pay a high price for a Japanese virgin. Rica herself falls foul of the gang, whose leader has no tolerance for Americans or Amerasians, due to an earlier incident where his girlfriend was raped by GIs and later killed herself.

Which all might be interesting – or, at least, okay – if this were executed straight, for intensity. Unfortunately, they got a new director in, Yoshimura replacing Kô Nakahira at the helm for this one, and he appears to have had a very different vision of the project.  For some reason known only to the film-makers, large chunks of this are obviously played for comedic relief, such as the sequence where they try to gang-rape Rica, only to be knocked out, one by one, through having a winch dropped on their heads. Throw in music which appears to have strayed in from Benny Hill, and you have something that has failed dismally to make the cultural transition over time and space – and that’s not even getting into the astonishingly obvious use of blackface for Hanako. It would take a special kind of talent to pull this kind of political incorrectness off, and even speaking as a viewer who is about as far from PC as imaginable, Yoshimura comes up woefully short. If you can make me cringe with embarrassment for the heroine, you’re doing… something. Just not what I want.

There are redeeming elements, led by Aoki’s continually smouldering portrayal of the heroine, who has a chip the size of Stonehenge on her shoulder against society, and takes no shit from anyone, be it her cell-mates in reform school, street punks or pornographic film-makers. When the film is pointed in the right direction, it’s by no means terrible; it’s just unfortunate that this tone is never sustained for long, before another wacky interlude destroys any atmosphere. It’s also a shame Aoki appeared in only one other movie, 1974’s Gakusei yakuza, since she has a striking look that could have sustained a longer career. This isn’t much of an epitaph.

Dir: Kôzaburô Yoshimura
Star: Rika Aoki, Jiro Kawarazaki, Taiji Tonoyama, Kotoe Hatsui

Rica 2: Lonely Wanderer

  By

★★★
“Black and white and red all over…”

rica2Our mixed-blood heroine is back, albeit with a slightly-different spelling of her name, a C replacing a K. But she’s still wading through criminal shenanigans from the get-go, as she escapes from reform school and gets informed that her similarly cross-bred friend, Hanako, is in trouble. The bearer of the bad news is shot dead before she can provide details, and when Rica heads to northern Japan, her train journey leaves a trail of dead bodies, of those apparently intent in making sure she doesn’t find out the truth. Turns out Hanako was providing entertainment on a ship, which was sunk by criminals, and one of the gangs responsible, under their female boss Yukie Shimamura (Tonoyama), is obliged to tidy up the loose ends – Hanako is now confined to a mental hospital. The local police, certain members of whom have ties to the gang, are not exactly enthusiastic about investigating any of this, but there’s clearly someone (Minegishi) on Rika’s side, as she finds herself receiving assistance and protection, from a source whose motivations are initially opaque. However, as the corpses continue to pile up, how long will it be before Rica becomes another one of them?

I’m not sure if the makers are taking this one seriously or not. Some aspects, such as Rica’s train ride, have an avant-garde and almost surreal approach, told without dialogue and instead utilizing a series of deliberately jarring cuts, between Rica and close-ups of the sun-glass wearing men who are following her. It’s unusual, effective and memorable. But then, there are other moments which are so ludicrous as to be completely laughable. For example, one fist-fight between Rica and a man trailing her, ends with him pulling out a short sword and committing seppuku. Why didn’t he – and this is just a casual suggestion – stab her with the freakin’ knife. There are also several too many song and dance numbers, mostly courtesy of Rica’s transvestite sidekick, though she herself also gets to strut her stuff on the stage at one point. and there’s more than the usual amount of casual xenophobia.

Against this, there’s no doubt that she seems to kick ass with copious frequency, though the fight scenes here fall more into a category I’d label, “enthusiastically amateurish.” It’s also nice that she’s going up against a female adversary. Shimamura herself makes for an intriguing character, since she’s following in her father’s footsteps, despite severe misgivings about having to keep the promises he made. The story does build fairly nicely, wobbly through its shakier moments to a final confrontation that ties up the loose ends, yet still leaves things open for a sequel. And, what’s this sitting in my viewing pile? Part 3? Despite some undeniable misgivings about the story here, don’t mind if I do…

Dir: Kô Nakahira
Star: Rika Aoki, Ryunosuke Minegishi, Taiji Tonoyama, Mizuho Suzuki

Legend of the Poisonous Seductress: Female Demon Ohyaku

  By

★★★
“I’ll no longer be a man’s toy, even if it kills me. I’d like to kill all men who abuse women with power and money.”

female-demon-ohyakuWell, you can’t argue with a title like that, can you? This proto-pinky violence film has many of the elements later developed more fully: a wronged woman is sent to prison, only to escape and seek retribution on those responsible for putting her there. In this case, it’s a period setting with part-time circus performer, part-time prostitute Ohyaku Dayu (Miyazono) finally getting the courage to break away from her sordid lifestyle, with the help of honourable thief Shinkuro (Murai). He’s planning a raid on the local mint, to steal the raw gold they use, and punish corrupt local officials.

However, a treacherous colleague betrays them, for a bureaucratic promotion, and Ohyaku is sent to prison – and, not even a women’s prison. It’s a men’s prison, that doubles as a gold mine. Fortunately, she falls under the protection of Bunzo the Iron Barbarian, which keeps her safe until she can work her wiles on the warden and his bisexual wife (Mishima), the latter of whom is obsessed with getting to tattoo Ohyaku, Our heroine chooses the Hannya demon as the subject – for good reason, as she eventually escapes jail to set about her revenge, and also complete Shinkuro’s raid.

The first and last third of this are truly effective, doing an excellent job of setting up the characters and resolving all the plot threads respectively. You can’t help but empathize with Ohyaku, her predicament and the steely resolve, maintained through some extreme tribulations, to take revenge for her lover – who is nicely drawn as well, Murai coming over as both charismatic and moral, despite his chosen profession. However, it sags badly in the middle third, from her arrival at the prison until her escape; it’s a section which either should have been shortened considerably, or needed more to happen.

Despite being made as late as 1968, it’s shot in black-and-white, which gives it a retro feel. It’s certainly a lot tamer, particularly in terms of nudity, than the technicolor tidal-wave that would be unleashed a couple of years later. Still, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, enhancing the impact of things like a trickle of blood down Ohyaka’s forehead. Some of the torture on view is certainly imaginative, such as being hung by the neck, with your feet just touching a metal plate enough to stop you from strangling. Then a fire is lit under the plate… Damn. Also of interest, the presence of the legendary Tomisaburô Wakayama, best known as the hero of the Lone Wolf and Cub series (a.k.a. Shogun Assassin), as a sympathetic gang boss.

The first in an apparent trilogy, this manages to overcome the weak middle section and leave me interested in following Ohyaku’s subsequent adventures. Miyazono may not have the impact possessed by some of other other pinky violence stars, yet the better-than-average script helps balance that out, and this has stood the test of time better than many of its era.

Dir: Yoshihiro Ishikawa
Star: Junko Miyazono, Kunio Murai, Koji Nanbara, Yuriko Mishima

Bloodbath at Pinky High, Part 2

  By

★★★★
“Pinky violence = serious business”

bloodbath2Following on more or less directly from the events of the first part, this sees Maki the Lone Wolf seeking revenge for the death of Midori as she fought against the principal and his reign of terror. Now in charge is Ranko and her gang, who stepped in to occupy the power vacuum, to “keep peace and good order” in the school – along with hunting down the remnants of Midori’s faction. Ranko captures Maki, but our heroine escapes with the unwitting help of Chiaki, one of Ranko’s Demons, and joins Momonga and Third, the last girls standing of Midori’s gang. Chiaki also allies herself with them, knowing Ranko will blame her for Maki’s escape. But can she really be trusted? And can Maki defeat, not only Ranko, but the hardcore delinquents she has recruited to join her, the very worst drawn from schools across Japan: Rakish O-Gin, Kiriko the Praying Mantis and Rinka the Parasol.

This is definitely better than the predecessor, mostly because it focuses on Maki. As noted in my previous review, she did a better job of capturing the pinky violence attitude than Midori, and we see that again here – the spirit of Midori shows up to guide Maki at various points, and the difference in their performances is obvious. There’s also more going on in terms of storyline and characters. Chiaki has a subplot about an ailing sister who yearns to see Chiaki become successful, and Ranko’s henchwomen are memorable villains in themselves. In particular, Rinka is a pitch-perfect Gothic Lolita, all frilly dresses and dark eyeliner, but carrying an umbrella which is also an automatic weapon. As the onlookers say while she’s fighting Maki:
    A machine-gun parasol? Is she really just a schoolgirl?
    She is majoring in technical subjects...
It’s also impressively gynocentric, with little or no male roles whatsoever, and the ones present are little more than drooling, sex-mad imbeciles, easily exploited for the benefit of the female characters.

I think it’s perhaps less obviously a parody, and that works in its favour. Not that it’s any less subtle; for example, early on, Maki’s method of attack is entirely focused on ripping open the tops of her adversaries. But rather than driving the joke into the ground, the makers let it go, and her fights against the higher-level minions are much closer to what you saw in the seventies. You don’t need to have seen part 1 to follow the story here, and the movie even works on its own, rather than requiring significant previous knowledge of the genre. It may be forty years late, but it’s one of the most-entertaining pinky violence films I’ve seen.

Dir: Toshiya Kominami
Star: Akari Asahina, Yoko Fujimura, Saya Kobayashi, Aoi Hozumi

Bloodbath at Pinky High, Part 1

  By

★★★
“Oh, look: their tops have come off…”

bloodbathIt’s important to realize that you need to be familiar with the pinky violence genre that this lovingly replicated and parodies, in order to get the most from it. If not, this will seem over-wrought, incredibly over-acted and more than slightly ridiculous, not least in the way that bras are apparently an unknown item in Japan. But, if you’ve seen enough of the movies that inspired it, you will appreciate from where it’s coming.

“I make my formal greeting. I was born and raised in Chicken Valley. My father was a poultry farmer. From age seven, I slaughtered chickens, 444 in total. By name I am Red Malice, Yumi the Cockscomb.”

Yeah, it’s like that. The heroine, Midori – a.k.a. Invincible Midori, the Wild Chrysanthemum – used to be a big shot, but now just wants the quiet life for her and her friends at her school, even though she could run it if she wanted. “It’s a mess, what’s the point? This way, I can do what I want,” Midori says. But, as you can imagine, she isn’t left in piece. For instance, there’s Maki, who has been trying to defeat Midori since they were both children. But worse still is Ranko and her Demon Gang, who operate as the strong arm of the principal and pimp unwilling members of this fine educational establishment out to his lecherous friends. There’s an uneasy truce between Ranko and Midori, but that is shattered after Harue seeks protection from the former, and her plight reminds Midori of exactly why she dropped out of the gang business.

From there, things escalate in the way they usually do, with Midori honey-potting a politician and the principal, then using the photographs to foment rebellion among the other students.  However, the principal retaliates by turning to his brother, head of the Inagaki Gang, who retake the school while Midori is busy dealing with Maki, setting up the final, explosive battle. In other words, it’s basically a pastiche, gluing together the tropes familiar from just about any example in the field, and turning the dial on them all, just a little bit higher. Most obviously, it’s almost de rigeur in the originals for the heroine’s top to be ripped open when she fights. Here, with refreshing honesty, that’s virtually the opening move. The main weakness is probably the lead (Hoshimi, I think – though since this doesn’t appear to have an IMDb entry, I’m kinda guessing), who is kinda bland and colourless, especially beside the actresses playing Maki and Ranko. This is the kind of thing where the performers need to throw all inhibition out the window: when that happens, you can certainly see where they’re going. However, it only happens intermittently, rather than with the consistency necessary to be truly successful.

Dir: Toshiya Kominami
Star: Rika Hoshimi, Asuka Misugi, Saya Kobayashi, Yoko Fujimura