Cult Movie Challenge 2018 | 45/52 | Pinky Violence
Nami, AKA the Scorpion, has broken out of prison and is on the run once again. She rides the subway when two police detectives spot her. They reach for her, but she slits one’s throat. The other handcuffs her, but she traps his arm in the subway doors and cuts it off. Chaincuffed to his arm, she speeds through the subway station and out on the streets.
Yuki lets her older brother, mute and brain-damaged after an accident, grind on her to completion. Once dressed, she leaves for the night to work the streets as a sex worker. After a session in a graveyard with a client, she spies Nami ducked behind a gravestone, running the handcuff chains along a stone to weaken it.
Yuki brings Nami to stay with her. Yuki’s brother breaks out and tries to drag Nami into his room, but she grabs a knife and cuts him before he can make a move. Yuki breaks it up, distraught that her brother still wants sex after all that she gives him. Nami gets a job as a seamstress and moves out on her own, but she and Yuki still hang out as friends. One night, Yuki confesses to Nami that she is pregnant with her brother’s child.
For the first time, we see Nami cry on behalf of Yuki, who must continue her sex work. But Yuki has made another disastrous choice: she is working in a pimp named Kenji’s territory without paying them. Will Nami be able to help Yuki, or will she get pulled deeper into Yuki’s world?
What a vengeful bitch…
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 was a heightened, almost surreal journey as Nami took on near-supernatural aspects. Initially, we get a more muted and grounded story. In the previous film, much happened within or adjacent to nature, while this film moves its story to the city.
That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have visual flair. There’s a bar scene where the image stutters, almost as if the blackout parts of a strobe light effect have been cut out. There’s an incredible scene, heavily overexposed, in which everything is white until sprays of blood fill the frame. Honestly, there are so many visually striking scenes.
The city is Fujifilm blue-green, the score is somber saxophone. The moments are stark and reflective, leaning into almost Gothic dread as these characters contemplate their life and their options. These women are at their lowest: imprisoned in one sense to avoid the other. Like all the films thus far, the story does not shy away from showcasing the depravity of men under patriarchy. As all too many women know, you will not find retributive justice within the law.
This movie also has a horrifying SA scene, this time with Yuki and at Katsu’s. It isn’t visually graphic, but it suggests enough to make anyone squirm. There’s also an equally horrifying forced abortion scene (again, suggested, not shown). Don’t worry — the revenge comes too.
Maintaining this level of quality over three films is no small feat. Doing it while making each film a totally different style is iconic. While this film doesn’t achieve the avant-garde heights of Jailhouse 41, it still stands on its own as another remarkable entry in the series. Alas, from the reviews of the next one, I fear it may be the last.