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Nami (Meiko Kaji) was send to prison because of a set-up: she was the
girlfriend of Sugimi (Isao Natsuyagi), a cop who had persuaded her to do
some undercover work concerning the Yakuza for him - as a result of this
she was gangraped. But Sugimi, instead of bringing the gangsters to
justice or avenging her, got on their payroll and dropped Nami. As a
consequence, Nami tried to stab him, but instead got arrested. During her
whole trial though, Nami does not testify against Sugimi (which would have
softened her charge) but lets herself be sent to the toughest
slammer/labour camp around. But once in, Nami desperately tries to get
out, but her attempt to make a getaway only lands her in the slammer, all
tied up and tortured by guards and bullying convicts alike - but even all
tied up, Nami knows how to get her revenge ...
Eventually, the warden, who desperately wants to get a confession out
of Nami, realizes that solitary does not work, so he tries a few other
methods, like turning the other convicts against Nami or locking her in
with a female undercover police officer. Neither method does work of
course, as Nami proves too tough for the other convicts, and the
undercover cop is soon seduced by Nami, who turns her inot her little
submissive ...
Meanwhile on the outside, Sugimi realizes that Nami will be a danger to
him as long as she's alive, so he hires her co-convict Katagiri (Rie
Yokoyama) to kill her in exchange for a lighter sentence ...
Meanwhile the warden has made up another strategy to break Nami, he
decides to work not only her but all of the prison's inmates to death
until Nami confesses ... but somehow the whole thing turns into a prison
riot, during which Katagiri makes several attempts at Nami's life, but
only hits her best friend Yuki (Yayoi Watanabe). And while Nami looks
after Yuki, most of the other convicts hole themselves in in the prison's
warehouse with a few (male) hostages, whom the (female) prisoners rape
right away.
Eventually, Katagiri sees her big chance and asks that Nami, one of the
few convicts not with the rioters but somehow the cause of it all, is
being handed over to them as a sign of good will by the warden, and once
she is with them, Katagiri has no problems persuading the others (well,
most of the others) to tie her up and brutally torture her ...
Then though Katagiri goes too far when she wants to burn down the
warehouse while the others are sleeping to finally kill Nami (and quite a
few of the others too), and suddenly it's her and not Nami being all tied
up and at the receiving end of a torture session. When the prison guards
finally storm the warehouse though, it's Nami who sets the place on fire,
and in the resulting chaos makes her getaway.
The prison's warden does not dare to make Nami's escape public in order
to cover up his own inefficiency ... so she has little trouble to one by
one kill the gangsters who have raped her. Finally, only Sugimi is left,
and he takes refuge in the police headquarters (remember, he's a cop) ...
but he of course does not know Nami is already waiting for him, and on the
building's roof, she stabs him to death ...
Her revenge is accomplished, but the last image of the film sees Nami
backin prison again, awaitking new tortures, one has to presume.
One of these fast paced, stylish, wild and extremely entertaining
sex-and-crime thrillers that seemingly have been produced in Japan by the
dozen during the early 1970's (see also Stray
Cat Rock: Sex Hunter, Lady
Snowblood - both also with Meiko Kaji -, Sex
and Fury or Zero
Woman: Red Handcuffs, to name a few).
This one is a grimk women-in-prison story that tells its tale in at
times highly stylized images, uses inventive camerawork and leaves strict
realism invariably behind should good storytelling demand it, thus turning
the exploitative and sleazy script into something resembling a word of
art.
What can I say, the outcome is just great, and you might even be
fascinated by the film if women in prison are are not your cup of tea.
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