Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion (Shunya Ito / Japan, 1972):
(Joshuu 701-gô: Sasori)

While the prison guards wait in vain for a show of remorse, the ferocious caged heroine (Meiko Kaji) remembers her defloration at the hands of a police squad lothario (Isao Natsuyagi): Virginal blood stains the sheets into a rising-sun iris, followed by a Suzukian gag that has the camera shooting from under a glass floor as horny criminals gather around her. The director, Shunya Ito, operates on a level of mythical scumminess, with manga panels, Gate of Flesh, and The Big Doll House used to furnish a procession of exceedingly wicked inventions. If a character is betrayed, the ground beneath her turns smoldering crimson; the shower scene isn't complete until one of the naked inmates is turned into a flashing succubus clutching a bloodied shard. Female fury is so maniacally concentrated that a bit of business from Cool Hand Luke is enough to trigger full-blown insurrection against orange skies -- "The beautiful soul and harmony of Japan." As the film's fierce barometer, Kaji is herself a sleek grindhouse vision, with deadly eyes under a tumble of black hair drawing the lesbian fervor out of an undercover government agent. "To be betrayed is a woman's curse," she says in a rare prolix instant, though expression is best left to explosions of comic-book intensity and the lyrics of her chanson of lament ("A woman's life is her song / Her song of vengeance" -- Tarantino heard it, of course). With Rie Yokoyama, Fumio Watanabe, and Yoko Mihara.

--- Fernando F. Croce

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