Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable movie review

by Chris   ⋅   May 14, 2006   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

These days the term fierce has been so overused by hip-hop artists, Tyra Banks, and Inside Hollywood celebrity-trash mongers, it seems to have lost its meaning. But if one were forced to find a dictionary definition personification of the word fierce, that one person that would fit the bill would have to be Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion) in her role as Sasori, the Female Prisoner, Scorpion. Her savage ferocity is not conveyed in idle threats of physical harm, or boasts of physical prowess, but rather manifests itself in her every action; her every being. As beautiful as she is deadly, the woman possesses an inner fury so intense she needs glance in your direction to make you fear for your physical well-being. In short, she is the hardest core heroine to ever hit the screen.

With this third installment in the Female Prisoner Scorpion saga Sasori has traded her prison of bars for a prison of squalor, living in a rundown apartment and working a sweat shop sewing job in an inner city ghetto, all the while keeping an eye out for her ever pursuant police inspector. Sasori makes friends with a down and out young woman, forced to work a life of peep-show prostitution to support herself and her retarded brother, a former factory worker left dumb by an injury on the job. Complicating the woman’s situation is the fact she is pregnant with her brother’s child, the result of an act of extreme pity rather than any sort of incestuous perversion. Though no words are really exchanged, the two form a sort of peaceful, spiritual or psychological understanding; the kind that can only be held by fellow societal outcasts.

Sadly, Sasori’s peace proves fleeting. Before long her beauty catches the eye of a philandering yakuza in the apartment neighboring hers. When she gets the best of him, in an act of delicious revenge via psychological suggestion, she is captured by his gang, and comes face to face with an envious old cellmate who has been waiting for a chance to turn the tables. Needless to Sasori is not held captive for long, and the swatch of vengeance she wreaks is everything you would come to expect from the Female Prisoner series. As the body count grows, so do the leads for the police, threatening Sasori with a reprisal of her status as Female Prisoner.

Though the budgets for the Sasori films had decreased with each successive installment, director Shunya Ito still manages to work his magic. The sequence with the raining flames as Sasori evades the police in an underground sewer tunnel is absolutely beautiful, and those involving Sasori’s vengeance on Katsu’s gang epitomize the whole avant-garde cinematic stage-tricks that characterized the best works of the genre. Sasori’s near mosaic-ed face as she peers through the cubed window to the office of her mafia-doctor target, brilliant red blood tainting the antiseptic white surface of the operating room. The quick cut interpolations of wronged victim and cellmate carried off by prison guards, as Sasori’s presence slowly drives Katsu to madness. The fluid camera twists as Sasori winds the corridors of the underground tunnels, police in hot pursuit. Her wardrobe changes from pitch blacks to dark blues to bleached blue and white prison dress as her captors slowly close in, reversing the order of dress from the previous films. It’s brilliant. It’s beautiful. The work is top notch.

The story itself is far more low-key than that of the previous two entries, but the downbeat vibe and the pervasive feeling of hopelessness serve to convey a scathing critique of the gender inequalities so engrained in Japanese society. The limited outlets for work and the disproportionate hardships heaped on women by their alpha male counterparts, who need only express their superiority through physical strength and numbers to get their way are all woven expertly into the narrative. There are no honorable men to be found in these films, and that serves to draw the audience to Sasori all the more. Though the film’s target audience is admittedly male, its message is decidedly feminist. Sasori is that avenging angel every woman wronged by a man wishes she could be.

Though Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable was the third and final Scorpion entry by director Shunya Ito, it does not feel like a farewell effort. The departure from the prison setting allows quite a bit of fleshing out of the Sasori character, and an excellent opportunity for societal commentary. Though it works on a vastly different formula, by all means it is an excellent addition to the series.

Chris Nelson is a Technical Writer in the Silicon Valley. He is currently studying for a Software Engineering degree at San Jose State University. He apologises for any oversights in his review, as the uproming finals week have him a little pressed for time.

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