Perfectly titled Sex and Fury, directed by cult director Norifumi Suzuki, and later gifted with a sequel by Teruo Ishii, is the epitome of '70s sexploitation Japanese cinema known as pinky violence, a sub-genre created by the studios to cash in on surefire ways to attract the audience now that TV has replaced cinema as the number one source of entertainment. These ways of attracting the audience often include gratuitous nudity, stylish violence and bizarre fetishism.
Sex and Fury is like a less refined version of Lady Snowblood (today best known for inspiring Tarantino for Kill Bill); both films take place during the Meiji era, feature bloody sword-fights, and follow a young heroine in her vengeful quest of avenging her murdered parent(s) by eliminating the responsible killers one by one. The two films even end similarly, with the main character ending up wounded on a snowy terrain. I don't think I even need to mention that Sex and Fury's final scene is a sleazier counterpart to Lady Snowblood's - Reiko Ike's character Ocho cleans her blood-splattered boobs with a handful of snow while Lady Snowblood just collapses onto the snow.
If we're going to mention Kill Bill, then I guess Tarantino owes some homage to Sex and Fury as well, because of the iconic scene where Ocho, fresh out of the bathhouse, slices up some villains with her sword while butt-naked in slo-mo. Now, Ocho is quite a character - not only is she a tattooed pickpocket, a gambler and a master sword-fighter, but also gets involved in some kind of a political scheme involving British spies, one of whom is played by Christina Lindberg, quite awfully, I must say. Yes, the acting is severely cringe-inducing for the most part, which only makes the already lazy dialogues worse.
So, what are some attractions? Well, aside from awkward dialogue, slaughtered politicians and all-around nudity, there's an annoying comic relief guy, lesbian sex which borders on being soft porn, nuns bearing flick-knives in an attempt to border on nunsploitation, a playing-card leitmotif repeated in many creative shots, a disturbing rape scene, a carefree jazzy soundtrack met with psychedelic rock, crappy bondage scenes (one of which occurs in a flashy disco-like setting), a dramatic family-tied reveal, a guy dying by licking poisonous German perfume off of Ocho's tits (I'm not kidding), only after that same guy oils a girl's vagina with a nymphomania-inducing cream (???), not to mention there are condom jokes, a mustachioed British bad guy in an attempt to bring Downton Abbey-like level of class to this mess, and, surprisingly, the film offers some really splendid production values and cinematography, color work and framing to nicely wrap this chaos up.
It's actually really well done on a technical scale. That doesn't change that it's senseless to the core, less in the realm of entertainment and more in the realm of awkward weirdness. Did I mention there's an anti- colonialism message?
6,5/10
Sex and Fury is like a less refined version of Lady Snowblood (today best known for inspiring Tarantino for Kill Bill); both films take place during the Meiji era, feature bloody sword-fights, and follow a young heroine in her vengeful quest of avenging her murdered parent(s) by eliminating the responsible killers one by one. The two films even end similarly, with the main character ending up wounded on a snowy terrain. I don't think I even need to mention that Sex and Fury's final scene is a sleazier counterpart to Lady Snowblood's - Reiko Ike's character Ocho cleans her blood-splattered boobs with a handful of snow while Lady Snowblood just collapses onto the snow.
If we're going to mention Kill Bill, then I guess Tarantino owes some homage to Sex and Fury as well, because of the iconic scene where Ocho, fresh out of the bathhouse, slices up some villains with her sword while butt-naked in slo-mo. Now, Ocho is quite a character - not only is she a tattooed pickpocket, a gambler and a master sword-fighter, but also gets involved in some kind of a political scheme involving British spies, one of whom is played by Christina Lindberg, quite awfully, I must say. Yes, the acting is severely cringe-inducing for the most part, which only makes the already lazy dialogues worse.
So, what are some attractions? Well, aside from awkward dialogue, slaughtered politicians and all-around nudity, there's an annoying comic relief guy, lesbian sex which borders on being soft porn, nuns bearing flick-knives in an attempt to border on nunsploitation, a playing-card leitmotif repeated in many creative shots, a disturbing rape scene, a carefree jazzy soundtrack met with psychedelic rock, crappy bondage scenes (one of which occurs in a flashy disco-like setting), a dramatic family-tied reveal, a guy dying by licking poisonous German perfume off of Ocho's tits (I'm not kidding), only after that same guy oils a girl's vagina with a nymphomania-inducing cream (???), not to mention there are condom jokes, a mustachioed British bad guy in an attempt to bring Downton Abbey-like level of class to this mess, and, surprisingly, the film offers some really splendid production values and cinematography, color work and framing to nicely wrap this chaos up.
It's actually really well done on a technical scale. That doesn't change that it's senseless to the core, less in the realm of entertainment and more in the realm of awkward weirdness. Did I mention there's an anti- colonialism message?
6,5/10