Japanese Title: Furyo Anego Den - Inoshika Ocho
aka Story Of A Bad Elder Sister - A Deer Amongst Wild Boars
Director: Norifumi Suzuki
Sex And Fury and its sequel Female Yakuza Tale were evidently Toei’s third and last attempts to hit the jackpot ala the Red Peony Gambler style of in-period (1900 -1930s) female yakuza film - although this time packed to the gills with a glut of sex, bloody violence, salacious humor and S&M. At the time, roman porno was flourishing as a genre in Japan, and it was to be expected, if not a bit cynical, that Toei would insert the softcore S&M/ sex ingredients into the period-action formula. Frankly, it’s impossible to imagine Red Peony star, Junko Fuji, indulging in the antics of shameless nudity that suddenly blossomed here. But the successful, groundbreaking aspect of Fuji as an invincible female protagonist certainly helped to nudge Toei executives into continuing to take risks with ever more brutal-heroine scripts. It also didn’t hurt that Toei was making money with star, Reiko Ike, in their contemporary Girl Boss (Sukeban) series.
Sex And Fury remains one of the looniest, most entertaining, most unapologetically violent Japanese sexploitation pictures ever made. It’s also one of the most beautiful. Ocho (Reiko Ike) is orphaned as a child when her gambler father is murdered by three unknown assailants. Flashing ahead to 1905 Tokyo, we find Ocho as a pickpocket and card sharp drawn into a web of violence when she hides a wounded anarchist (Masataka Naruse). Naruse turns out to be in love with a foreign spy played by Christina Lindberg (star of the explicit Swedish Thriller). Lindberg is subsequently coerced by her sexually abusive diplomat boss to steal secret documents from a right wing big shot (Seizaburo Kawazu), all in the hope of engineering another opium war, this time with Japan. Coincidentally, Kawazu is the man Naruse is bent on assassinating and, lo and behold (!) one of Ocho’s father’s killers! Also thrown into the mix is a Simon Legree-ish satyr and evil gang boss (Hiroshi Nawa) who just happens to be the lover of Kawazu’s wife (Yoko Mihara) as well as another of the murderers.
One of many memorable sequences sees Ocho eliminate him when he unknowingly licks up the poisoned perfume she’s spread all over her naked body! Ocho helps Naruse in his assassination attempt on Kawazu, but she is captured in the process and whipped by Lindberg (who is undercover pretending to do Kawazu’s bidding) in Kawazu’s bizarre cellar with Christ-crucified as an S&M motif! Later, wife Mihara tries to rescue Ocho, but is stopped by Kawazu who reveals that Mihara is not only Ocho’s mother, she’s also the third in the trio of her father’s killers. Meanwhile, Lindberg and Naruse rendezvous but are ambushed by her boss and die in each other’s arms. In the ferocious conclusion, Ocho escapes into the main part of Kawazu’s compound with her sword, decimating all of his followers and finally Kawazu, himself. But Ocho is so ventilated by blades and bullets, it’s a miracle she survives until the sequel, Female Yakuza Tale.
As usual with director Norifumi Suzuki, there are extraordinary setpieces: Ocho’s early massacre of a betraying yakuza gang accomplished with her totally in the nude (they’d ambushed her in her bath); the rendezvous of Kawazu, Nawa and cohorts in a magic lantern show enacted as psychedelic happening; Ocho stumbling away from the final bloodbath in a night of (real) falling snow that slowly becomes a fluttering rain of hana fuda (flower) cards. Employing his usual arsenal of surreal and tongue-in-cheek humor, Suzuki and fellow screenwriter, Yoshihiro Kakefuda also seem to have been influenced by the Lady Snowblood films, albeit with much, much more sex. One wishes that Suzuki had been as faithful to period detail as he is to letting his imagination have free rein. Despite taking place in 1905, there are some jarring inconsistencies such as Lindberg wearing panties obviously of 1960s vintage and later a buckskin-fringe top and miniskirt! Even still, this transcends into a pop culture realm of genuine art just as Russ Meyer transcends.
©2006 - Chris D.
