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Reviews
Zubekô banchô: Zange no neuchi mo nai (1971)
More than just a genre film . . .
Of the four films included in the "Pinky Violence" box set this is the most complicated, plot- wise, and the slowest moving. That said, it very well may be the best "film" of the four, as it offers more than just the kinetic sex and violence typical of the Sukeban genre. Certainly those elements exist (in abundance) but there appears to be more attention put in the buildup to the (inevitable) vengeance that crowns the film.
The basic story is that Reiko Oshida is a recent graduate of reform school. While incarcerated she met the father of one of her fellow students (Yuko Katayama), who was trying to visit his alienated daughter. He gives Reiko a small toy to pass on to her. Yuko, whose boyfriend is a Yakuza, refuses the gift from her father, angrily telling Reiko to keep it herself.
Upon her release, and not having anywhere else to go, Reiko tracks down Yuko's father (Junzaburo Ban) to return the toy. Ban is the owner of an auto repair shop, which the Yakuza are trying to take over. Yuko, it seems, has been using the family seal to pay off her boyfriends' gambling debts, making Ban libel for exorbitant amounts of money. Despite his financial state he offers Reiko a job and a place to live, effectively making her his surrogate daughter.
At this point the film becomes more complicated, as several sub-plots are introduced (all of which feed back into the main story). It seems that some of Reiko's former classmates are working at the Ginza Girls Cabaret, a hostess club that is also being shaken down by the same Yakuza gang. Another classmate (Yukie Kagawa) has been forced out of hostess business and is working at an "art" studio, doing nude modeling to try and support her tubercular, ex-Yakuza husband (Ichiro Nakatani), who has also been recently released from prison. And another classmate is working at a ramen shop near Reiko's auto-shop.
Out driving one day with the shop assistant, Reiko gets involved in a car accident with Tsunehiko Watase, who we later discover, is the younger brother of Yukie's boyfriend Ichiro (the ailing gangster). Reiko and Tsunehiko flirt by pretending to hate each other. Tsunehiko also has several angry confrontations with his brother, as he tries to convince him to leave the city and convalesce in the country, where the air is better and he will be free of his Yakuza masters, whom he has sacrificed his health to.
Eventually the girls are reunited and begin to work to get Yukie a job at the Cabaret so she can earn enough money to move get out of the city with her boyfriend. But the Yakuza are leaning on Ban more and more, as his daughters' debt spirals out of control. Deciding to take matters in her own hands, and believing that the Yakuza will negotiate with a woman, Reiko confronts Boss Ohya (Nobuo Kaneko) at his headquarters. The Yakuza mock her and force her to strip, with the obvious intention of raping her. Listening from the next room is Yuko, Ban's daughter and Reiko's nemesis from reform school, who tries to prevent the assault on Reiko. The Yakuza don't take kindly to this and tie up both girls, telephoning Yuko's father, telling him that they will exchange the girls for the deed to Ban's land. Ban agrees to the trade, but when he arrives it is revealed that he is actually the feared Yakuza assassin Tetsu the Razor, who has retired from the underworld and attempted to live a straight life. Now pushed beyond endurance he takes out his razor and the roomful of hard-ass gangsters cower from him.
Shortly after, Ichiro (the sick Yakuza boyfriend of Yukie) comes to ask Boss Ohya to release him from service so he can leave the city. Boss Ohya agrees, on the condition that Ichiro kill Ban. Ichiro, not knowing that Ban is the employer of his brother's paramour (Reiko) agrees and sets out to assassinate the old gangster. He finds him in an alley, and they fight, only to both be run down by a car driven by Boss Ohya's henchmen. Both are killed.
Finally, all the characters realize how they are connected and after an hour and fifteen minutes of slow burn the girls don red trench coats and pick up Samurai swords and, with the help of Tsunehiko, head out to take revenge on Boss Ohya and his gang, in a scene that undoubtedly influenced the bloody restaurant battle Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill". Despite taking some time to get there, the scene's payoff is huge, and more resonate because of the path taken.
Of the four films included in the box set this is the one that feels most thought-out. I've seen many contemporary directors try and weave together interlocking, simultaneous story lines which eventually converge, and fail miserably. Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi succeeds where other "serious" filmmakers have failed when finally the whole story comes into the open it makes sense and does not feel forced or contrived. The revenge being sought at the end of the film is hot-blooded for some of the characters and cold-blooded for others. The film touches on such diverse themes as loyalty, family bonds, and sacrifice; making it more than just another genre "vendetta" movie.
Excellently done and possibly worth the price of the box set.
Zenka onna: Koroshi-bushi (1973)
Amazing, intricate yakuza vengeance tale
I managed to see an advance of this film, as a part of Panik Houses' "Pinky Violence" box set, and of the four films included this is by far the best. Watching Reiko Ike and her crew ruthlessly pit Yakuza gangs against each other and the gangs' blindness to the idea that a crew of women could be behind their destruction is amazing.
The basic setup is that Reiko Ike is a vengeance seeking ex-con, who originally was sent up for trying to murder the Yakuza boss who drove her father to ruin and death, and had her gang-raped. While in prison she befriends a crew of three other women, put away for crimes ranging from prostitution to motorcycle theft, and upon her release gets back to the serious business of vendetta. This involves her whoring out to American soldiers and using her new "business" connections and money to buy a lot of guns and grenades. She and her crew then begin to align the two local Yakuza clans (Oba and the formerly dominate Hamayasu) against one another, trying to instigate a full-scale gang war in which the gangs kill each other off. Serving as arms dealers and instigators to both sides Reiko and her crew ratchet up the violence, preying on the gangs' arrogance and paranoia. There's a great turn from Takeo Chii as Tetsu "Mad Dog" Hamayasu, the son of the aging Hamayasu boss, who swigs from a full bottle of saki while playing pool, shooting people, and setting fire to carloads of gangsters.
Eventually a snag arises when the Oba boss's girlfriend (Miki Sugimoto) recognizes Reiko and her gang from back in prison and realizes what they're up to. She's torn between her loyalty to the gang and, inexplicably, a desire to help her former prison-mates. She tries to warn them off of their vendetta, but ultimately helps set up her lover and his crew.
The gang war itself is amazing, particularly the set piece at Hamayasu's offices, where Oba and his mob storm the building with machine guns, while old Boss Hamayasu himself, dressed in traditional robes, fights them with nothing but a Samurai sword. It's one of those old school Yakuza scenes that hearkens back to, well, pretty much every Samurai movie ever made. Boss Hamayasu is killed, naturally, but goes out with a lot of the Oba clan's foot soldiers cut to ribbons.
Naturally the whole film ends with a massive shootout where everyone that's not female dies.
One unexpected aspect to the film is it's circular path. It opens with a knife fight between Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto in jail and ends with a recreation of the same fight after the death of Miki's lover, Boss Oba. The circular nature of the tale is fairly subtle, but it's easy to see how it can be a meditation on the way that vengeance simple begets more vengeance.
Oh, and there's this bit where Reiko almost gets her breasts cut off with a chainsaw, but gets a cigarette put out on her nipple instead. That's gnarly. Which is probably what you want from a Sukeban exploitation film. You won't be disappointed.