User Reviews

After the stunning 'Sex & Fury', Rieko Ike reprises her role of Ocho in 'Female Yakuza Tale', but this outing is markedly inferior as director Teruo Ishii simply does not exhibit any of the visual style which Norifumi Suzuki displayed in the original.

Despite it's rather unpleasant storyline about female drug mules at times seems like a slapstick comedy and fails to engage the viewer. The film also suffers from an overly large cast - characters are introduced who do virtually nothing & screen time is eaten up by a meandering plot, unfunny slapstick and rather unerotic nudity. Most annoyingly Rieko Ike is simply not on screen for long enough.

The film does have it's moments, with the most stunning sequence being the opening fight where a parasol spinning Ocho butchers a gang of men while losing her clothing. Infuriatingly the opening credits are plastered over this scene which was obviously cut short before it's conclusion. One wonders if this was an out-take from 'Sex & Fury' as it is so different in style from everything else in the movie. None of the other fights come close to this one and the climactic battle between the male villains and an army of naked women is disappointing, totally lacking the outstanding choreography and slo-mo intensity which made Ike's naked fight in 'Sex & Fury' so outstanding.

'Female Yakuza Tale' is worth watching if you are a fan of Japanese exploitation despite it not being anywhere near as good as it's predecessor - maybe if you plan to watch them, you should see this first.

Teruo Ishii's sequel to Norifumi Suzuki's outrageously entertaining Sex and Fury unfortunately isn't anything to write home about, as it is weaker than its predecessor in almost any way. Reiko Ike returns as Ocho Inoshika, and the film starts with an obligatory sequence where she slaughters some thugs while naked, but that's pretty much all these two films have in common.

Female Yakuza Tale suffers from a boring, convoluted plot with pointless characters and awful dialogues. Even though the story is about a Yakuza clan that uses a gang of female thieves for them to smuggle drugs in their vaginas, the film fails to properly execute that bizarre concept. There's also Osho's backstory, which sees her getting saved from having to cut off a finger by a Yakuza kingpin, who then gets murdered by the current boss, who also kidnaps his daughter and puts her in a mental hospital with kabuki-practicing mimes. As ridiculous as it all sounds, the film is quite boring and it feels like it lasts much longer than 85 minutes.

There's also a supporting character, this guy who, despite throwing bullets into people's nostrils and glasses and shooting their moustache off, is not charismatic at all. He's helped by a female prisoner Scorpion lookalike, some Christian assassin who "prays before she kills", who barely contributes anything and about whom we learn nothing. The visual style is almost ordinary compared to Sex and Fury, the comical scenes mostly miss their mark, and the soundtrack is some kind of a mix between '70s funky music, bouncing springs and Ocho's theme song (?) sung by Reiko Ike in the final scene where she walks off into the Sun (not a sunset, just the sun).

The action is scarce and the sex scenes are numerous but poorly executed, except for the one where Ocho has sex with the boss. It's all just an unfocused mess, where you're never sure if the sex scenes are here to serve as filler to the plot or the plot is just jumbled together to string the sex scenes together (okay, it's definitely the second one). However, the climax of the film is so outrageous and hilarious that it makes up for the rest of the film. The gang of naked female thieves fights against the clothed male gangsters in an epic display of playing card blades, bullets, knives, swords, píss, bottles of cocaine, fists and frantic editing. Has to be seen to be believed.

After I watched Noribumi Suzuki's visually captivating, violence-packed and sex-charged revenge exploitation film - Sex And Fury (1973) – my expectations towards its' sequel "Female Yakuza Tale" were naturally high. Unfortunately, it proves to be a considerably weaker effort compared to its' predecessor.

The mesmerizing Reiko Ike is back as Ocho – the beautiful and skilled sword-waving gambler, who, after having avenged her father's death in the first movie, is now facing a new threat – a drug trafficking ring, which has a rather unconventional way of smuggling drugs (using women's private parts as a hiding place for the drugs!). Reiko's character seems quite indestructible in this sequel which becomes evident in the fight scenes, not getting even a single bruisе (there is however a scene where she is being tortured, but only after being tricked and drugged by her enemies). The opening sequence with Reiko fighting in the open under pouring rain against countless villains after having lost all her clothes is a treat to the eyes – beautifully shot and lit and with stunning choreography and sword-play – here the director of the sequel Teruo Ishii is staying close to Suzuki's original vision and this opening scene is like an echo of the unforgettable action episode in "Sex And Fury" where Reiko is forced to defend herself again totally in the nude, after being attacked while taking a bath. But further on, Ishii kind of abandons this style in favor of showing more nudity and sleaze, and presents a story with some ridiculous subplots and quite a few faceless and weak new characters, opposed to the first movie's more simplified and one-dimensional storyline (yes, it too had some subplots involved, like the girl-spy's love story, but I think they weren't distracting at all) and its' memorable rich characters (just compare the villains from the 2 parts to see what I mean). It's like Ishii wanted to push the limits of sex and violence even more, but in the final battle scene the effect is rather exaggerated and comic – grenades are flying, guns are blazing, swords are drawn, faces are ripped apart, there is even an episode where a girl is urinating on a corpse of a man, after the groin of said corpse has been crushed by another girl (we don't see it that clearly, but do we really need to ?) so, the violently chaotic ending proves to be hilariously anti-climactic, not to mention the main villain is killed off by Reiko so easily, fast and effortless, that it makes the whole concept of having this character in the movie pointless.

That being said, the film still has its' moments, like other reviewers already mentioned, and can be amusing to watch for its sheer amount of sleaze, some quite funny and memorable lines and laugh-out-loud episodes (the scene with the guards in the mental hospital, anyone?) And once again - the captivating opening fight-scene and Reiko Ike are enough reasons to disregard the obvious shortcomings of "Female Yakuza Tale" and enjoy it fully as it is – a silly light-minded and cheap exploitative action thriller with buckets of blood and tons of nudity. That's how we like it after all, isn't it ?

If you like Tarantino, this will probably appeal to you -- Kill Bill seems to be in no small way based on this film. I would like to take issue with some of the negative reviews: Yes, the plot is complicated. Watching a movie in translation will *never* capture the original subtleties. If you have to watch it twice to understand, the fault is not the director's so much as the language barrier. Also, there were some remarks about the nudity being 'unerotic'. When and why should nudity be erotic? To me, the nudity in this film is all about power - in every scene, with the key exceptions of the opening sequence and closing fight, nudity is equated with weakness and vulnerability. By completely reversing that association in the final scene, nudity (and, by extension, womanhood) is held up as a powerful force.

After finding the Quentin Tarantino movie (s) Kill Bill to be rather disappointing,I've found myself staying away from taking a look at any Marital Arts related film genres.Taking a look at IMDb's Horror board a few weeks ago,I noticed a thread talking about a great sounding Martial Arts sub-genre called Pinky Violence.With the sub-genre being in the back of my mind,as I started to search for DVDs online that I could watch for a poll being held on IMDb's Classic Film board for the best movies of 1973,I was delighted to stumble upon a Pinky Violence title on Ebay,which only had 5 minutes to go!,and led to me excitingly getting ready to take a look at the Pinky Violence genre for the first time.

The plot:

Taken to an unknown destination by a rickshaw driver,Och Inoshika is suddenly grabbed by a gang of drug dealers,who tie Inoshika up and begin torturing her,as they start to prepare to make Och into their latest drug carrier,by placing their latest drug supply into her body.Finding Inoshika to have an unsuitable body for the drug carrying,the gang knock Och out,and run away.

Woken up by a strange man, Inoshika is confronted with a body of a dead women by her side,and a blood-covered knife in her hand.Reconising Och clears signs of stress,the stranger tells Inoshika that she must track down the gang fast,or else she will be labelled as the offender/serial killer behind a series of murders called the Crotch-Gang murders.Relising that the victim's blood has been placed on her hands,Inoshika decides that she must wipe out the entire city's brutal underworld.

View on the film:

For the screenplay of the movie,co-writer/ (along with Bobby White and Masahiro Kakefuda) director Teruo Ishii takes an intriguingly hazy approach to the plot,with the wonderful overly exaggerated Pinky Violence scenes being contrasted by a number of rather broad Sex Comedy moments,which feel completely at odds with the disturbingly cleaver scenes, (such as the body part that the gang makes their carriers keep the drugs in)spiked across the film by the writers.

Setting the movie off with high-kicking style,composer Sou Tsguki, (whose sadly not credited on IMDb) gives the film a tremendous score,with Tsguki giving the title a rolling atmosphere thanks to a fantastic opening theme,which is joined by a smooth dark jazzy score,which perfectly matches Inoshika's battle with the underworld.

Reveling that she's clearly not afraid from showing some skin right from the start,the stunning Reiko Ike gives an excellent performance as Och Inoshika,with Ike giving the films fight scenes an elegant,graceful note that is matched by the cold stare which Ike gives Inoshika,as she takes on the thugs of the underworld one by one.

Opening the film with a sparkling title sequence fight, director Teruo Ishii shows a tremendously stylised eye,with Ishii using long,closed in tracking shots to show the dark streets of the city which Och is walking down,which are lit up by Ishii's fantastic use of colour,thanks to Ishii not only spraying red for the films stylish fight scenes,but also using primary colours in everything from the stain glass windows to the drug dealers den to give the title a delightful dream atmosphere,as Ishii turns all of the violence in the film,bright pinky.