Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Falconeer 'Criminal Woman: Killing Melody' is a strong entry in the 'Pinky Violence' box set, mostly due to the presence of both Reiko Ike, and the amazing Miki Sugimoto, as rivals/comrades. This film is a more straight forward revenge tale, and it moves at a good pace. Reiko Ike stars as Maki, a woman out for revenge against a Yakuza gang responsible for her fathers death. The original Zero Woman, Miki Sugimoto exudes a strange elegant quality in this one, as the wife of the Yakuza boss. The two wildcats meet for the first time in prison, and than again on the outside, when Maki's revenge plan begins to to take form. Reiko Ike is tough & uncompromising in this one, bent on wiping out the gangsters, while Massayo (Sugimoto) must retain a cool exterior; she doesn't really want any harm to come to her former cell mate, as she can respect the other woman's strength. At the same time, she feels some loyalty to her husband, or so we think. Miki Sugimoto remains my favorite 'Pink Heroine'. There is such strength in her voice, and in this one, much of her body is tattooed! Before i watched this I was afraid that it would be marred with silly comedic overtones, something which in my opinion ruined 'Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess'. But there is none of that silliness here, just a straight forward approach, with fine melodramatic overtones, as well as some great sleaze. Not nearly as sadistic as 'Terrifying Girls Highschool', which is my personal favorite in the collection. But there are those moments that are expected from this genre, in particular a scene where Miki Sugimoto burns Reiko Ike's breasts with a lit cigarette. 'Criminal Woman: Killing Melody' is a classic 'pink' film.

christopher-underwood Fine all action, sex and violence Japanese style with real style. Simple yet effective this is, for once, a fairly straight forward tale of revenge with the super women to the fore. Big cat fight at the start is matched by a rematch at the end and everything in between is just pure fun. Bits of nasty violence, the cigarette stub and threat of chainsaw were surprises but mainly fast moving with decent mix of s&v. Nice sequence to illustrate our heroine having to go on the game to earn the dosh to set up the action. Instead of any boring build up with sad undertones we get a quick montage of humps and payments from US soldiers uniform pockets.

rabbit541 OK, I'll admit that I'm not the biggest Japanese gangster movie fan for the same reason that I'm not the biggest mafia movie fan or the biggest skate video fan. There just aren't that many girls in it, and the one's that are tend to be arm candy or victims. Aside from seeing some cool fights and some dudes talking tough there just isn't much for the ladies in it.Then (and this makes me feel super ashamed and stupid girl like, but deal with it) my boyfriend brought home an advance of the Pinky Violence box set, of which this movie is included. I looked at it and thought: "What in the hell is this?"The packaging is like the trapper keeper you had in grade school. All soft and pink and folds out into about a million pieces (the final box set supposedly comes with four films, a booklet and a CD of Reiko Ike singing). It looks cool and has really well designed liner notes.But the movies. Right. The movies.These are supposed to be "exploitation" flicks, meaning a movie as an excuse to see some boobs and some pointless violence. Like what you see late night in the hotel room on Cinemax. But aside from having some boobs and tons of violence these movies didn't seem "exploitive" in the way that I normally think of exploitation. All the main characters are women, they're tough as hell, have cool tattoos and beat the crap (or just murder) most of the men around them. Because they're just as tough as any of the yakuza dudes they're kicking the crap out of.And they're way, way, way smarter.Of the four movies this one and Girl Boss Guerilla were my favorites. Both star Reiko Ike (who's on the cover of the box as well) who seems to have made a name for herself as a tough ass yakuza girl gangster movie star in the 70's.Basically this is a revenge movie. The Yakuza has killed Reiko's father and raped her. So she goes after the Yakuza boss to get some revenge. She fails and ends up in prison where she makes some friends and after her release hooks back up with them to take another shot at the Yakuza boss who ruined her life. This time she's trying to play it smart (as opposed to running into a bar with a knife and trying to stab everyone) and is going to start a gang war that will get everyone bad killed.The girls are super tough and super smart (and the dudes are suitably dumb and full of themselves). I was a little uncomfortable during a really long topless torture scene that has the threat of a chainsaw (but I'm kind of uncomfortable watching women get tied up and beaten in general) but the scene didn't seem forced. I mean, you know, they're the Yakuza. They're supposed to be evil and scary. So sometimes they have to wave chainsaw's around the put out cigarettes on people.

division1656-1 I managed to see an advance of this film, as a part of Panik Houses' "Pinky Violence" box set, and of the four films included this is by far the best. Watching Reiko Ike and her crew ruthlessly pit Yakuza gangs against each other and the gangs' blindness to the idea that a crew of women could be behind their destruction is amazing.The basic setup is that Reiko Ike is a vengeance seeking ex-con, who originally was sent up for trying to murder the Yakuza boss who drove her father to ruin and death, and had her gang-raped. While in prison she befriends a crew of three other women, put away for crimes ranging from prostitution to motorcycle theft, and upon her release gets back to the serious business of vendetta. This involves her whoring out to American soldiers and using her new "business" connections and money to buy a lot of guns and grenades. She and her crew then begin to align the two local Yakuza clans (Oba and the formerly dominate Hamayasu) against one another, trying to instigate a full-scale gang war in which the gangs kill each other off. Serving as arms dealers and instigators to both sides Reiko and her crew ratchet up the violence, preying on the gangs' arrogance and paranoia. There's a great turn from Takeo Chii as Tetsu "Mad Dog" Hamayasu, the son of the aging Hamayasu boss, who swigs from a full bottle of saki while playing pool, shooting people, and setting fire to carloads of gangsters.Eventually a snag arises when the Oba boss's girlfriend (Miki Sugimoto) recognizes Reiko and her gang from back in prison and realizes what they're up to. She's torn between her loyalty to the gang and, inexplicably, a desire to help her former prison-mates. She tries to warn them off of their vendetta, but ultimately helps set up her lover and his crew. The gang war itself is amazing, particularly the set piece at Hamayasu's offices, where Oba and his mob storm the building with machine guns, while old Boss Hamayasu himself, dressed in traditional robes, fights them with nothing but a Samurai sword. It's one of those old school Yakuza scenes that hearkens back to, well, pretty much every Samurai movie ever made. Boss Hamayasu is killed, naturally, but goes out with a lot of the Oba clan's foot soldiers cut to ribbons.Naturally the whole film ends with a massive shootout where everyone that's not female dies.One unexpected aspect to the film is it's circular path. It opens with a knife fight between Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto in jail and ends with a recreation of the same fight after the death of Miki's lover, Boss Oba. The circular nature of the tale is fairly subtle, but it's easy to see how it can be a meditation on the way that vengeance simple begets more vengeance.Oh, and there's this bit where Reiko almost gets her breasts cut off with a chainsaw, but gets a cigarette put out on her nipple instead. That's gnarly. Which is probably what you want from a Sukeban exploitation film. You won't be disappointed.