Popular reviews

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★½ 4

  Some kind of violent kaleidoscopic pop-art gore soaked nightmare. Compact revenge jam with the fiercest eyes, I’d kill to see this on a big screen.

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  Review by Willow Maclay ★★★★½ 6

  "What is it like to be a Woman?"

  Genre cinema frequently asks this question of viewers. In genre it is used as an empathizing technique to ask audiences to identify with a victim and her eventual conflict. By getting viewers to see themselves as the women of these movies filmmakers create a funnel that cycles into tension, horror, action and eventual catharsis through resolution, but what of female audience members? Women already know what it's like to be a woman. We know the feeling of being followed down a side walk for an uncomfortable amount of time. We understand the jeers of men who make comments about our bodies, because this isn't something we go to the cinema to feel,…

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  Review by Matt! ★★★★½ 17

  “None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me!”
        - Rorschach
              - Matsushima
   
  Fuck yeah. Unbridled female rage. Women-in-prison exploitation. Rape revenge fantasy. Psychosexual dreamlike nightmares. Soul-piercing demon eyes. A sensory overload onslaught of vertigo, anxiety, and violent chaos. Vibrant, cold, colorful, and bleak all at once. A human Terminator anchored by the will to survive and driven by the sole purpose of eliminating her one target: the embodiment of male sexual abuse, the man who ripped her innocence, her humanity, and her soul from her chest, betraying her love & trust and leaving only an unrelenting fire to rage inside…

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  Review by Bryan Espitia ★★★★★ 2

  Meiko Kaji staring intensely into the camera

  Me: five stars

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  Review by nathaxnne [hiatus] ★★★★★ 9

  NO SLEEP / NO REMORSE

  (patriarchy degree zero :: a ruined right eye :: a hole that can never be filled

  no escape until there is
  no victory until it comes

  a trail of ants over my feet
  a fire that will not go out

  
  
  

  ((dracula cloak, night slip, kitchen knife, daylight, bared teeth, bared teeth // ACAB ACAB ACAB

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  Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★ 6

  I was worried for awhile that Meiko Kaji would not wear her floppy hat. But then she did and she was able to exact her revenge. These things are not unrelated. It’s the floppy hat of vengeance.

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  Review by Aberrant Ghoul ★★★★★ 15

  Now that's a woman. Too much woman for you. Too much woman for any man. Her heart is frosted over. She's harder than the adamantium bonded to Wolverine's bones. Her eyes will slice your damn soul clean in half.

  Is it just my imagination or did Japan just do exploitation better? Sleazy sure, but it's also slick as fuck. A visual feast, spilling over with stylized imagery. A comic book splashed across the screen. Each panel dripping with creativity. Larger than life. Hyperreal. Dreamlike. A dream of an angel cast down into hell, surrounded by absolute scum. Tormented by men and women alike, but tempered by the fires of this nightmarish purgatory. Rising, like a phoenix, from the ashes. She'll have her revenge, and you'd do well to stay the hell out of her way, lest you too feel the sting of the scorpion.

  Meiko Kaji. Just... too much goddamn woman.

  youtu.be/yT9zJ2V9lfw

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★

  pinky exploitation fever dream. rising red sun of a virgin's blood. "To be betrayed is a woman's curse."

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 2

  Again, obviously, I watched this out of order. This is the original Scorpion movie, and while it lacks the magical realish element and keeps most of the flaws of the sequel, it has the same excellent direction the other film had. There are moments the camera positively dances, especially as Scorpion digs in the middle of the pit and the other prisoners are throwing dirt on her. It whirls and whirls, and you get a sense of oppression right there with her.

  Really, it surprised me how well made these were. I guess I've just been in the exploitation/grindhouse gutter for a while, so finding decent films in these genres that don't waste their time on filler and bad editing and awkward camera angles is always a plus.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½

  90

  Electrifying from start-to-finish. Moves from revenge to WIP film to gothic horror to humid exploitation, and each and every mode coheres into a singular tapestry of style. That the initial betrayal isn't solely based on a physical violation (although it is still very much that), but a betrayal of love, and of trust and acceptance. Wow. It's the gut-punch to light the spark of this damp, dreary masterclass.

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  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★½ 7

  Lady Snowblood as Nami an innocent girl framed by a dirty cop and sent to a ruthless prison where the inmates and the guards make her life a living Hell. However Nami is relentless and she will do whatever it takes to escape and get her justified revenge in this classic Japanese Women in Prison film. Air raid. Fast doggies. Morning jog. Nude stair climb. Yummy rice! Under the covers. Strip search. Ganja smuggler? Hot soup. Nightstick fuck and suck. Odd or Even looks like a fun game to play while you're in prison. Bloody nose. Group shower. Only some of the prisoners wear orange, I guess they are the only inmates with Netflix and access to Orange Is The…

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  Review by Tao A ★★★★ 9

  I find it absolutely incredible how Japan managed to make their cheapo exploitation films from the 60s and 70s look as good and have as much artistry put behind them as the European arthouse stuff. And unlike the European arthouse stuff, they aren’t fucking boring.