This has to be the most stylish women-in-prison flick that I've ever seen. You get wacky upside down camera shots, super use of colors and some great fashions for something that mostly takes place insid a prison. The film successfully straddles the line between being a downbeat sleazy jailhouse movie(complete with mandatory shower scene and sadistic warden) and an absurd ultra-violent cartoon and this is not an easy thing to do. You get a tale of female vengeance involving tons of cat-fights, torture by miso soup, plenty of nekkid Asian ladies, bondage, kung-fu, knife-fu and gun-fu and as a bonus a prison guard who looks like Tony Clifton that never takes off his sunglasses. One standout scene features female-on-male rape(sure to please any "feminists" brave enough to watch this). There's also some of your more traditional gang rape and even some symbolism involving the Japanese flag thrown in which would probably mean more to me if I was either Japanese or smart. The one thing that does get to me after watching this a couple of times is how long it takes for our heroine, Meiko Kaji(who gets to don her big floppy hat similar to the one in STRAY CAT ROCK: SEX HUNTER), to get any payback for all the abuse she takes at the hands of pretty much everyone. I mean realistically she shoulda been dead before she even gets a chance to get her vengeance but luckily the absurdity of the violence level is matched by the absurdity of her mutant-like healing powers.
There were three sequels to this which I have yet to see but if they're half as good as this one I can't wait to check them out.
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