SLEAZY SEGUE

Following the stream of consciousness from the previous post about Kiss of Death, the mention of Swedish sexpot Christina Lindberg brings us to Sex and Fury, a pinky violence co-opt of the popular Red Peony female gambler series. Sex and Fury (the original title is something like 'Story of delinquent elder sister Ocho') features voluptuous (and shameless) Reiko Ike as the sexy Ocho who is an expert card sharp, pickpocket and kicks ass at nude swordfighting. Speaking of fighting in the nude, does anyone remember Cirio H. Santiago's Firecracker (aka Naked Fist) starring Jillian Kesner? It features a memorable scene in which Kesner's character, a martial arts expert searching for her sister, is assaulted and ends up defending herself while each item of clothing is cut off her body, one by one. Apparently Santiago (a journeyman director of Filipino exploitation cinema who just passed away September 26th) knew this was a good idea when he tried it the first time in TNT Jackson, featuring Jeannie Bell, one of the first African American playmates of the month. Actually, I think Firecracker is a remake of Jackson. ANYWAY, Lindberg appears in SEX & FURY as a foreign gambler put in more than one compromising position during the course of the film's lurid action/comedy/sex combo. S & F is a low-brow good time helmed by legendary Japanese exploitation auteur Norifumi Suzuki. I thought it was a funny coincidence that there's a character with the same name in Japan's domestic blockbuster of a few years back, (the insufferably saccharine) Always: Sunset on Third. To its merit Always does feature a nice recreation of postwar Tokyo, an interesting inversion: artificial design of a setting associated with neo-realism. Nostalgic indeed. Anyway, enough with the digressions. In the 'Japanese Cult, Pulp and Exploitation Cinema' class I've been co-teaching we just screened School of the Holy Beast, a rousing nunsploitation film by Mr. Suzuki. Here's some of the info I provided the students:

School of the Holy Beast (Seiju Gakuen) (1974) director Norifumi Suzuki was a screenwriter first who worked on yakuza, chanbara, karate, exploitation, sexploitation and such genre films. Suzuki wrote some of the Red Peony scripts and directed the second installment, Gambler's Obligation. His niece is none other than Oryu herself Junko Fuji. Suzuki directed his fare share of pinky violence ( a lot of sukeban) films and Sonny Chiba movies. He also directed the popular Truck Yaro (Truck Rascals) series about renegade truck drivers, featuring yakuza eiga stalwart Bunta Sugawara. Suzuki's serial killer film Star of David: Beauty Hunting is even more infamous (and shocking) than his foray into nunsploitation. Suzuki also claims credit for introducing the term 'porno' to Japan (an alternative to the common expression 'pinku').

Holy Beast featured the debut of lovely lead Yumi Takigawa. Takigawa was scouted off the streets of the Shinjuku district of Tokyo. She went on to appear in other genre films such as Graveyard of Honor (yakuza film by Kinji Fukasaku), Bullet Train (Sonny Chiba has to rescue a hijacked bullet train from bomber Ken Takakura), and Karate Bear Fighter. Takigawa also had the honor of reviving the role of scorpion in 1976's New Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701 after Meiko Kaji departed the series. She went on to a successful TV career and forged an image antithetical to that of a pinky violence starlet, enhancing the cult value of Holy Beast (because of her rare risqué performance).