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In
Beast Stable, the
third film in the Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion
series, escaped convict Nami Matsushima (Meiko
Kaji) has reached an unnamed Japanese city and
is trying to disappear into the population. Spotted
on a subway train by a pair of police officers,
she kills one and is forced to hack off the second's
right arm to avoid capture. Crouching in a park,
working the bloody arm and handcuffs loose, she
is found by a young prostitute named Yuki (Yayoi
Watanabe) who invites the nearly mute woman to
her home. Yuki shares an apartment with her older
bother. The poor man has been reduced to a near
imbecilic mental state by a work-related accident
and is cared for by his sister even
though she has to submit to his sexual needs in
an effort to keep him pacified. When he wakes
to find Nami, he attacks her and is nearly killed
by the enraged lady. Yuki intervenes, explaining
his horrible misfortune, but it's clear she can't
stay with the siblings.
After a few days pass Nami
obtains a sewing factory job and her own one room
apartment. Yuki visits her often and one day confesses
that she is pregnant with her brother's child.
In a moment of tearful anguish she tells Nami
that she intends to have the baby but that she
wishes the father were dead. Once her friend leaves,
Nami goes to Yuki's apartment intent on killing
the brother. But in a beautifully played scene
she can't do in cold blood what she has so easily
done to save her own life or elude capture. Unluckily
a local yakuza member living in Nami's building
recognizes her from the (very stylishly sexy)
wanted posters plastered all over town. Invading
the woman's room, he tells her she must willingly
become his lover or he'll turn her in. Unfortunately
the fellow has reckoned without the jealousy of
his live-in girlfriend, who finds him in the neighboring
apartment after a telephoned tip-off and douses
him with boiling water. Infuriated by the loss
of this hardworking street pimp, the area crime
boss has Nami grabbed. As she's informed that
she is being held responsible for the dead man's
lost revenue, the boss' lady and criminal partner
Sameshima (Kojo Nambara) recognizes Nami. Holding
many grievances from their shared time in prison,
Sameshima is thrilled to have "Scorpion"
at her mercy. Intending to toss her into a brothel,
she is slapped around, drugged and locked in the
boss' oversized aviary
from one cage to another.
With her friend missing, a
despairing Yuki realizes that she must get rid
of her child. In another amazing but disturbing
sequence her visit to the doctor is intercut with
another abortion
this one forced on a hapless prostitute by the
yakuza crew holding Scorpion prisoner. When this
prostitute is dumped beside Scorpion's birdcage
she is holding a surgical scalpel clutched during
the operation. And after the poor woman dies of
her injuries, that tool effects an escape and
a vengeful, bloody visit to the offending doctor.
Enraged with what has been done to herself and
their threats against territory-poaching Yuki,
Scorpion goes on a violent rampage, killing the
yakuza members one by one.
Meanwhile, the cop Scorpion
deprived of an arm, Kondo (Mikio Narita), has
resumed his pursuit and is called to the scene
of the abortionist's office. As the bodies pile
up and the descriptions all point towards his
quarry, he starts watching the surviving yakuza.
Almost catching her after one assassination, the
police lose her in the city's sewers. Here she
hides for days living only on what little food
Yuki can slip to her through manholes and street
drains. Finally the police discover Yuki attempting
to carry food into the patrolled area and force
her to help them catch her friend. But once Scorpion
is lured close, Kondo orders gasoline pumped into
the sewer resulting in a firestorm that surely
no one could survive.
This is one of the most bold,
energetic, engaging and beautiful movies I have
ever seen in the WIP (Women in Prison) genre.
A type of film usually steeped in any and every
sordid kind of nastiness possible as their raison
d'κtre, WIP films' sleazy charms are mostly
grim and gritty. I'm a fan of the genre but until
I witnessed the Female
Prisoner 701 films I thought I'd seen
pretty much every variation on this theme there
was. Obviously I had skipped Japan! These are
amazing films, shot with a mastery of filmmaking
style that belies their low budgets. From the
cinematography to the editing to the acting, these
films are simply fantastic. The visual creativity
on display in this film alone shames not just
contemporaneous movies but some films I've seen
recently given major theatrical pushes. Every
scene and shot seems perfectly framed with an
eye not only to making the scene work but to constantly
drive the story forward. There is no wasted time
or screen space on display
just perfectly pitched style in service to the
story. Brilliantly, the style doesn't overwhelm
the tale being told but enhances it, bringing
out the emotions sharply and drawing us into the
character's world. There is almost no scene in
Beast Stable that
doesn't have some eye-catching color or image
that is in perfect service of the story. A simple
foregrounded shot of a boiling kettle is immediately
seen as indicative of someone's enraged mental
state. A short scene involving a party of drunken
men and prostitutes in a nightclub was shot with
a smoothly moving camera and then edited with
multiple skipped frames to give the viewer the
giddy, sped-up feeling of a raucous night on the
town. A simple overhead shot of Nami's small apartment
gives the impression of a cage
shot that is mirrored later when she's tossed
in with the birds. Any film with a credit sequence
in which a woman runs across a busy city with
a severed arm dangling from handcuffs has the
audaciousness to try anything. Luckily the filmmakers
also had the talent to craft a superior entertainment.
There is so much attention to detail on view that
I cannot recommend the film highly enough just
as eye candy, but that is only one of many enticements
on display. In my opinion this is a masterpiece
and director Shunya Ito is one of the great unsung
geniuses of Japanese cinema. That he is not better
known in the U.S. is very nearly a crime.
Of course, I'd be remiss if
I didn't mention the amazing central performance
of Meiko Kaji. She's a beautiful woman able to
communicate complex emotions with little more
than a narrowing of her eyes. As the film progressed
I noticed her use of subtle body language to impart
Nami's mental state. She is so often in a defensive
crouch, eyes darting for signs of danger, that
the moments when she is quietly sewing at work
or pouring tea in her apartment stand out. She's
no less a solitary figure at these times but the
calm she exhibits is remarkable. Through simple,
graceful movements Kaji shows us the kind of person
Scorpion might have been in a different world.
That she is so effective in her role is even more
incredible when you realize that she utters fewer
than 10 words in the entire film. Rarely has so
much emotion been communicated onscreen with so
few words. Beast Stable
is the third film of the series but is easily
accessible to a first time viewer. Indeed I think
that these movies could be watched in any order
with no loss of appreciation for the story of
each.
Although Quentin Tarentino
used the Scorpion series' theme song in his Kill
Bill saga, any doubt that he knows these
films well is erased by the opening scene of the
fourth film, Grudge Song.
The movie begins with Nami being arrested while
working as an attendant at a wedding. In custody
only a few minutes, she manages an escape but
is wounded. Stumbling into a brothel she is taken
in and hidden by Kudo (Masakazu Tamura), a bitter
ex-student protester with both physical and psychic
scars. Haunted by his breakdown under police torture
that resulted in the deaths of his friends, he
holds no love for the police. So even with the
series' standard dangling handcuffs on her wrist,
he risks himself to secret her in his old protest
group's hideout. A tip from a spurned woman lands
Kudo back in the interrogation room with his old
cop torturer Kodama (Yumi Kanei) brutally questioning
him to find Scorpion. He refuses to crack and
is released but unintentionally leads the authorities
to her. The pair escape after a heated firefight
and seek revenge on Kodama, but only manage to
cause his pregnant wife's death. Kudo now enlists
Nami in reviving his old plan to rob a payroll
delivery to fund a war on the police. The theft
goes bad, leaving Nami solo again and the shotgun
toting Kudo back in police hands. This time the
cops use his mother as a wedge to break him, resulting
in a betrayed Scorpion in custody and back in
prison. Nami is scheduled for execution in five
months. For Kodama that's not good enough; he
wants to kill her with his own hands in revenge
for his wife. He's thwarted, however, by the soft
hearted, religious Head Warden. Putting a female
guard in a compromising position, he forces her
to set up Scorpion for a false escape so that
he can handle her execution personally. But just
because you have a noose around someone's neck
doesn't mean they're going to hang...
While still a very good film,
the drop in quality from Beast
Stable is immediately noticeable. After
the almost three dimensional, pop-off-the-screen
texture of the previous film this one feels consistently
flat. Had not seen two of the previous films I
doubt I'd be complaining, but this is easily the
least of the series I've seen so far. That's not
to say its bad; it just isn't in the same league
as the entries directed by Shunya Ito. The film
doesn't lack for style but the stylistics are
less subtle this time and only fitfully effective.
The repeated use of blue and red lighting to enhance
or illuminate emotions is only really effective
a few times. More than once it seems an afterthought
to attempt to perk up an unexciting scene. The
score is often poor with only the unexpected love
scene being enhanced by the music. Even Meiko
Kaji seems less appealing here, shot less attractively
and at times appearing unsure of herself. This
is sad, as the script has her character exhibit
some new traits that could have lifted her performance
to a new level with a better director. While hiding
from the police she becomes Kudo's lover, yet
after the well-handled love scene in which she
can't meet his eyes, she is never given another
new note to play. Soon enough she's pledging vengeance
on everyone and we're back in familiar territory.
Maybe that's for the best with a series of films
that is essentially a catalog of righteous revenge
set-pieces. But it was interesting to see that
brief bit of the human peek out from the eyes
of the hunted animal.
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