Džošú sasori: 701gó uramibuši

After Shunji Ito’s multi-layered and formalistically avant-garde sequels, which took the potential of the Female Prisoner Scorpion franchise to unprecedented levels, the fourth film brought not only an unfortunate change of director, but mainly also a completely moronic sequel that comes off as a vulgar disparagement of everything Itó and Kaji created together in the previous films. The first half of Grudge Song involves some motifs that, in the hands of a more ambitious director, could have been brought to fruition with respect to the theme of police brutality and revolutionary sentiments from recent demonstrations. But then the chaotic narrative brings us to the offensively straightforward and chauvinistically conceived second half set in a prison, where even logic and causality yield to brutishly superficial sequences. The gratuitous rape scene is so offensive in its unconcealed stupidity and victimisation that it can’t compare to the disgusting nature of Hasebe’s later rape scenes for the Nikkatsu studio during its decadent era of roman poruno production. The final nail in the coffin is the ridiculous and, in its anti-logic, borderline nonsensical climax, in which Hasebe remembered at the last moment that he could copy the theatrical formalistic elements of Itó’s works, but due to its shallowness, the result is merely an indictment of Hasebe’s lack of originality and conceptual thinking. (2015.10.11)