While the three films that follow this are worth watching and have action and stir emotions as usual the first one is the best. It shows the most jailhouse brutality, desirable nudity and, just believe me for now, has the most dialogue from the star despite her being in jail.
This is from 1972. What do we have in 2021? Humanity and art are going backwards.
7.2Keywords: japanrape and revengewomen's prisonguard
Plot summary
After being cruelly set up and deceived by Sugimi (Natsuyagi Isao),a conniving and crooked detective she had whole-heartedly fallen in love with (and subsequently lost her virginity to...),Matsushima Nami's desire for revenge knows no bounds. Her failed attempt at stabbing Sugimi on the steps of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters results in her doing hard time in a female prison run by sadistic and horny male guards. To Sugimi's surprise, Matsushima refuses to testify against him and his connections to the mob, and now the sheer fact that she knows such secrets makes her a liability. So Sugimi and the Japanese mafia orchestrate a plan whereby Matsushima will succumb to an "accidental" death in prison. They enlist the help of Kagiri, another female inmate with ties to both Sugimi and the mafia, thus their formidable plan is quickly set in motion. Little do they realize, however, how hotly Matsushima's desire for revenge burns within her.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 798.31 MB
1280*534
Japanese 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
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This Has It All
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Watch it
The first 30 minutes of this film will break your heart, so be ready for it. I will never forget this beautiful and sad movie nor the beautiful and sad almond eyed Kaji. And neither will you, unless you are dead inside. Watch it.
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Watchable, but not an overwhelming movie experience...
Taking into consideration that the movie is made in 1972, then it is actually a movie that you can still watch today, and that alone is quite an accomplishment in itself.
For a 'women behind bars' type of movie, or whatever these movies are labelled as, then "Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion" (aka "Joshû 701-gô: Sasori") is fairly straight forward. Sure, it is entertaining, but it hardly a movie that really makes you go wow.
There is a lot of time spent on watching Matsu (played by Meiko Kaji) being delt harsh physical labor as punishment in the prison and having to watch her perform said punishment. While it is something that definitely sets a tone in the movie, it just got a little bit too tedious halfway through the movie.
As for the acting, then it was adequate. It was a shame that the Matsu character didn't have that much dialogue to perform in the movie, because I think that Meiko Kaji's true potential was not given the freedom to express itself that she deserved.
The dialogue in the movie wasn't really something that you should get your hopes up for. Sure, it was serving the movie well enough, but this was hardly Mark Twain material.
Director Shun'ya Itô was good at keeping the movie within a watchable perimeter where it didn't slip out into becoming too much with the nudity and rough scenes. It was actually done in a very good manner, I think, and that definitely kept the movie afloat a long way down the river.
While "Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion" is watchable and entertaining, it is not a movie that made me feel like I had been missing out on a great cinematic gem here, after all today in 2019 is the first time I am watching it.
My rating of the movie is six out of ten stars.