Post by morrisondylanfan on Sept 20, 2019 2:52:18 GMT
Hi all,just before wrapping up this box set (feeling very good about finally wrapping these up!) I wanted to ask if anyone has seen or read a English language interview with Meiko Kaji? I've been looking round online and can't find anything.
After delaying the viewings for so long,I now find this a trilogy which is easily a match for the best trilogies I've seen from Europe or the US.
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable (1973) 10
After the shameful transfer of the second film, Eureka redeem themselves with a neat transfer to end their DVD box set,with the colour tones being kept even on the picture,and the soundtrack remaining clear.
Closing this era of the franchise which he had made his film making debut on, director Shun'ya Ito reunites with cinematographer Masao Shimizu, and remarkably takes the series in a new direction for the third time (!) Chopping the arm of a cop off before the credits have even rolled, Ito and Shimizu move away from the gritty WIP sleaze of FPS1,and the utterly unique surrealism of FPS2, to boil up a rich Gothic Horror atmosphere, brimming in strikingly composed shots of Matsu trying to hide from the cops while on the run in a lush blue dress lightly covered in shadows casting her as a avenging Gothic Horror princess. Twisting the reflecting surrealism of the first two into thrilling horror, Ito goes down an outstanding extended set-piece in the sewers, slinging the camera down in ultra-stylised tracking shots keeping up on Matsu’s attempt to outrun the cops, coming up for air made of cut-throat Dutch angles and haunting close-ups on Matsu eyeing her next cut to freedom.
Hiding out on the side streets and brothels of Japan, the screenplay by the returning Hiro Matsuda continues from the second in featuring a feminist political element, in this case thugs taking the choice away from their slaves/ women on if they do,or do not want a abortion, leaving the victims severely psychologically scared. Keeping the one remaining long arm of the law after her, Matsuda threads a intense cat and mouse exchange between Matsu and Detective Kondo, which is coiled into a wonderfully haunting final exchange of glances. Joined by a wonderfully agitated Mikio Narita as Kondo, Meiko Kaji gives a outstandingly layered turn as Matsu, thanks to Kaji balancing a single tear of fragility on a blade, with a clinical, survival instinct of escaping from the beast stable.