Panik House's Pinky Violence.com

It's a line of sexy, action-exploitation thrillers begun in the late sixties in Japan. These
films featured female yakuzas and girl boss guerillas duking it out for their freedom,
their pride and their own piece of the pie. This electrifying genre mixed titillation with
social commentary, predating its closest American and European counterparts by
several years. These groundbreaking films continue to influence some of cinema's
most celebrated directors, like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Takashi Miike.

Toei's Bad Girl Cinema

1971 seems to be the year Toei studios amped up the sex and violence in their
cinematic output, as well as the increasingly perverse nature of their scenarios.
Catering to the basest of human nature - although in an entertaining, often
transcendentally anarchic way – Toei offered what a diminishing movie audience
seemed to want. In other words, material too controversial to be found on television.
And demon television’s rocketing growth was the sharp tack letting the air out of
the Japanese motion picture industry.

So how was this sex and violence manifested in Toei’s 1970s pop cinema? Well, one
way was in the boosting of the ‘blood and breasts’ quotient of their already-established,
set-in-period, knife-wielding woman gambler pictures (such as, Sex And Fury and Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition And Torture). Another was in their increasingly maniacal sukeban (literally ‘girl boss’ or ‘bad girl boss’) gang films (such as Delinquent Girl Boss – Worthless To Confess, Girl Boss Guerilla, Terrifying Girl’s High School – Lynch Law Classroom and Criminal Women – Killing Melody). In a nutshell, the aforementioned sum up the qualifications for films described as ‘pinky violence’ – a Japanese pop slang term for ultra-violent movies featuring female protagonists and varying degrees of softcore sexuality.

A watershed year for the comparatively new female gambler genre came in 1968, most visibly with Toei’s successful Red Peony Gambler (Hibotan Bakuto) films set in the early 1900s, starring Junko Fuji. There were eight Red Peony Gambler movies between 1968 and 1972, directed by such top Toei filmmakers as Tai Kato and Kosaku Yamashita, and often co-written by director (and Fuji’s uncle), Norifumi Suzuki. The Red Peony Gambler box office bonanza caused an outburst of both female yakuza and samurai cinema at all the Japanese movie studios: from Toei’s grand guignol female samurai Quick Draw Okatsu (Yoen Dokufuden, 1968-1969) trio to Daiei’s Kanto Woman foursome to Shochiku’s Crimson Bat (Mekura No Oichi, 1969-1970) blind samurai girl quartet to Nikkatsu studios’ various female yakuza efforts, including Meiko Kaji in the bizarre yakuza/horror hybrid, Blind Woman’s Curse (Kaidan Nobori Ryu, 1970). All were predecessors leading up to the lunacy of the ‘pinky violence’ duo, Sex And Fury and Female Yakuza Tale – Inquisition And Torture. But all were also a bit more restrained in the realm of blood, sex and nudity.

Toei had spun off Junko Fuji into other yakuza movies in 1969 - 1971, but she retired from the screen to get married in 1972, which, for all intents and purposes, anticipated the demise of the more traditional female gambler cinema. Her last Toei picture was the all-star Cherry Blossom Fire Gang (Kanto Hizakura Ikka). Toei attempted to strike paydirt once more, first with Kyoko Enami in Tai Kato’s Showa Woman Gambler (Showa Onna Bakuto, 1972), then with the late Eiko Nakamura in Teruo Ishii’s grand guignol ode to ‘pinky violence’, The Red Silk Gambler (Hichirimen Bakuto, 1972).

Meiko Kaji did a more contemporary take on the ninkyo yakuza heroine, mixing in elements from sukeban films in director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi’s two Ginjo (Silver Butterfly, 1972) movies and played a more hard-edged anti-heroine in the four popular, manga-inspired Female Convict Scorpion (Joshu Sasori, 1972-1973) pictures, transcendental examples of violent seventies cinema. In addition, the year 1973 saw Toho studios draft Kaji for director Toshiya Fujita’s pair of turn-of-the 20th century Lady Snowblood (Shura Yukihime) movies adapted from Kazuo Koike’s popular manga. The revenge sagas, though not specifically yakuza or samurai, had the feeling of both and employed a true-to-the-period radical anarchist political background as subtext. These two – despite the lack of nudity – seemed to have had a profound influence on what was to come next -- Toei’s resident sukeban, Reiko Ike, giving the genre a try in 1973. The over-the-top Elder Sister (Anego Den aka Ocho) pair of films, Sex And Fury and Female Yakuza Tale, were directed by Norifumi Suzuki and Teruo Ishii respectively and, as already mentioned, are chock full of surreal juxtapositions, spectacular violence and totally gratuitous nudity.

Sukeban

Sukeban is a contraction of the Japanese words "Suke" (female) and "bancho" (boss). The term describes a specific high school archetype which is usually (though not always) associated with juvenile delinquency. The term "Zubeko" (bad girl) is no longer in vogue, but at the time these films were made was a hip slang expression that would more accurately have been translated as "bitch".

The current Kogal (also Kogaru) style of retro-hip soul-sister fashion can first be seen in these films -released two decades before the advent of Kogal culture. In fact these films were among the first to show high school girls (albeit delinquents) in street styles rather than exclusively in the uniforms with which they are so closely identified. This change-of-styles was likely a political statement on the part of the filmmakers (equating the loss of that uniform with the loss of sexual innocence) and it heralded the arrival of Japanese feminism.

The Sukeban films, though released as exploitation, contain strong social commentary. They collectively told a single cautionary tale, and presented for contemporary Japan the same dystopian world that A Clockwork Orange predicted for future England.

Chris D. is author of the just-published OUTLAW MASTERS OF JAPANESE FILM as well as the upcoming GUN AND SWORD: An Encyclopedia of Japanese Gangster Films 1956-1980. He recently saw festival release of his first feature film as director, I PASS FOR HUMAN, and also works as a programmer at The American Cinematheque in Hollywood, Ca.