Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs

ゼロ課の女：赤い手錠 Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs. Yukio Noda, 1974

It's time for another unbelievably trashy exploitation film, so leave your notions of good taste behind and strap yourselves in as I introduce you to yet another queen of 1970s Japanese genre cinema, Miki Sugimoto. Quite possibly the baddest, babein’est chick the screen has ever seen. While she was often paired with other bankable genre stars, particularly Reiko Ike, who we last saw in Sex and Fury, Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs is a vehicle all of Sugimoto’s own. And what a monstrous vehicle it is.

Sugimoto plays Rei, a secret agent cop whose character is not only left unexplained, I even had to search the web for her character’s name, as I really can’t recall it being mentioned in the film at any point. After breaking protocol in order to exact her own gruesomely cathartic revenge on a disgusting European diplomat (Where exactly is Almania anyway?) who was responsible for the death of a girl I’m assuming was a friend of Rei’s. Her license is revoked and she is thrown in prison. At this point I felt a bit disappointed, as I was hoping for something more than just another “women in prison” film. Well, I got more. Almost too much more. It was at this point that the film’s real story develops, and I use the term “Story” in the loosest possible sense, as it is the simplest, pulpiest thing I’ve come across in a while: The prime minister’s daughter has been kidnapped. Retrieve her and kill those responsible using any methods necessary and you’ll get your old life back. So there you have it, the barest bones of a story, the likes of which still get used today (Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita comes to mind) which, in the case of this film, serve as the perfect foundation to build a gratuitously wild ride upon.

Rei's tools of the trade... Is that a water pistol?

 The vast majority of this gratuitousness is not conveyed through the central female role however, this duty is entrusted to a gang of disgusting male criminals, who never pass up a chance for a bit of senseless violence or gang rape. Even as a fan of these kinds of films, I did find there was a bit much too much pointless violence, most of it brought about by the almost completely one dimensional male characters, when really all I was hanging out for was for Rei to get down to business with her titular red handcuffs as she did so well in the film’s whirlwind opening four minutes. Instead, Rei quietly bides her time, infiltrating the gang to take them down from the inside occasionally taking part in the kind of spectacular set piece deaths we look forward to. Falling backwards into a bath seems to be a popular way to go in this film. The artistic flourishes of the 70s are also present, with the surrounding environment invading and adding to the violence through naturalistic sound an image, whether of a series of planes taking off, or in a more surreal way with colours and lights filling empty background spaces to accentuate Sugimoto’s largely silent performance, in a way similar to visual effects used in Female Prisoner #701. Sugimoto does however deliver some great Dirty Harry-esque one liners though, “I’m not from any section. I’m from section Zero”. Also called into question, although quite offhandedly and without any real analysis, is a question of morality surrounding cops who act like criminals. It’s a throwaway line, but does put the film into some kind of (slightly) deeper territory, as pretty much every character is shown as having a complete lack of morals. Backstabbings and bungled plans abound, and the cops, all males of course, are shown as being particularly incompetent.

Around halfway through the movie I found myself thinking, “This movie could be so much more.” It was probably because I just wished Sugimoto would quit lurking in the background behind these vile crooks. But then my prayers were answered when the plot takes a turn. After the prime minister realises his reputation will never recover from the scandal, he orders the cops to kill his own daughter and Rei. Thus, with all bets and gloves well and truly off, the last thirty minutes of the film are pushed completely over the edge into non-stop mayhem. A huge shootout ensues between the criminals and the cops, with Rei caught in between. But it is the location that is the most baffling element. The whole thing seems to have been filmed in some kind of abandoned American military camp turned Wild West ghost town --IN A RAGING HURRICANE. Paper is blowing around everywhere, cars are destroyed, villains burnt and scarred and Rei throws her red handcuffs around like Spider-Man, and tells the chief of police to enjoy the promotion he will no doubt receive upon arrival in hell. Wow.

If that wasn’t enough, I think I may have also picked up on a bit of Anti-American sentiment. All throughout the film there are visual cues to Americana, particularly the military. In one particular scene some of the criminals even piss on an army sign. And in a more sinister turn, the U.S Navy is symbolically implicated as a perpetrator in the rape scene! I’m really not familiar with director Yukio Noda’s work at all, but could this film be one huge America bashing exercise? Is the senseless violence, particularly the head villain killing his own brother in a fit of rage some kind of damning Vietnam allegory? On the other hand, there seems to be clear American filmic influences at work here. Documentary style surveillance shots of cops staking out the gang coupled with costuming directly references film noir and American Police procedurals, while a terrifying and bizarre home invasion could be influenced by American horror films such as Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left. Even Scorsese would be proud of the hand in a vice torture scene and shallow grave in a wheat field murder. The more I think about it, the more this film seems so well informed and transcends its label of throwaway trash exploitation. There actually seems to be a lot more going on here… 

 

Manhattan, Pepsi and the U.S. Navy as a brutal rapist of an innocent and defenseless Japan??

This film is worth watching purely for the magnetic Miki Sugimoto, who can easily be placed among other 70s Japanese Queens like Meiko Kaji, Reiko Ike and even internationals such as Christina Lindberg and Pam Grier. On the one hand, this film is standard exploitation fare, but also, it’s not. The violence has an explicitly brutish nihilism that until now, I had not seen in Japanese 70s cinema. The overabundance of disgusting male characters is this films weakest point, but they all die in spectacular ways by the end of it anyway. This was the first in a series of Zero Woman films, and I’m not sure whether Sugimoto starred in any of the others. The film is a mixed bag, and could definitely have given its star a bit more to do, but keeping in mind it is the first in a series, it certainly gets it off to a explosive start.

Battle Royale

バトル・ロワイアル Kinji Fukasaku, (2000)

Madman Films have recently released a reissue of Kinji Fukasaku’s notoriously controversial cult classic Battle Royale, quite possibly to coincide with the release of the film The Hunger Games, which, from what I understand (which really isn’t all that much to be honest) is a borderline rip off of Fukasaku’s modern classic.

Based on Koushun Takami’s novel, Battle Royale is one of my favourite films of all time. A short prologue sets the scene; at the beginning of the new millennium, Japanese society collapsed, with thousands of people out of work and students boycotting school. This state of emergency quickly led to the passing of the government sanctioned “Battle Royale Act”, in which a class of students is selected each year to fight each other to the death on a desert island under adult supervision. The last one alive wins. While I do wish that this economic and societal context was established a bit more, it hardly matters. It is just the kind of vague B-movie set up that serves to get us into the meat of the story. At first glance, Battle Royale is nothing but a pulpy exercise in gratuitous violence, however, there is much more beneath the surface. Characters are quite well established, often through flashbacks, and come across as very believable Japanese schoolkids, often confused and clinging to their school crushes and grudges. Fukasaku creates a world not so far removed from modern Japanese society and reflects the breakdown between youth and adults. The two are often shown in absolute opposition to each other, unable to connect, with familial or pedagogical relationships often strained or downright bizarre.

A scary psychological aspect also comes into play through the behaviour of the students. Upon hearing the rules and premise of the battle, some refuse outright to participate, killing themselves in defiance, while others jump at the chance to settle old scores amongst classmates. Fukasaku appears to condemn the modern Japanese society that has brought about this state of affairs, taking sides with the youth, portraying them as resourceful, loyal and strong, while the adults appear as weak authoritarian figures, unworthy of and unable to gain the youth’s respect.

Each time I watch this film I realise more and more how melodramatic it is, but it is perfectly justified, as it remains in keeping with the film’s overt B-movie premise and aesthetic. In fact, it is this unashamed pulpiness that elevates this film to something far beyond a B-movie. You can expect dreamlike flashbacks, awkward teenage professions of love and over the top death scenes (splattered generously with blood throughout). These melodramatic elements could easily prove to be too much, but Fukasaku’s cast of youths, (many of whom have since gone on to much larger success) create a wide range of interesting characters that collectively create the film’s all important “Class B”. Takeshi Kitano fills the position of the main adult role, as the class’ cold and brutal teacher. It is this negative portrayal of the adults and their society which often creates much of the film’s black humour, one example that comes to mind is the video the students are forced to watch, which explains in a stereotypically overenthusiastic Japanese game-show style, the rules of the game.

This prolific director Fukasaku’s final film. And what a note to end on, summing up his distrust of adults and authority, commenting on modern Japanese society and providing an amazing film that seems intended to speak directly to the youth of today, urging them literally to “Run!”. On top of all this, it is a deliriously violent and exciting wild ride. Madman’s reissue appears to be of the Director’s cut, which adds a few extra scenes and epilogues to the film, however in my opinion, these are largely unnecessary and I would recommend the original cut. Finally, don’t go anywhere near Battle Royale II: Requiem, Fukasaku directed only one scene before his untimely death and the film was completed by his son. It is not a patch on the original.