Female Slave Ship (Onna
Doreisen)
Director: Yoshimoto Onodo
Year: 1960
Production Company: Shin Toho
Running Time: 83 minutes
With a title like this one might easily assume
that this will have the lurid smell of girly exploitation surrounding it
like a beer worn lap dance parlor, but then one has to realize that the
film was made in 1960, a few years before Japan cinema dived head first
into the “pinku” genre. In truth this is a fairly mild film in that respect
– it is more of an adventure action film that may tease but never crosses
the line. The film does have an intriguing mix of female slavery, pirates
and girls with guns and that combination alone makes it somewhat unique
and enjoyable.
It is 1945 and things are looking bad for Japan’s
war effort, as the American’s have devised a radar device that has allowed
them to control the skies. The Japanese have found some information though
that may counter this and they encode it on a picture and send Lt. Suguwa
back to the home country with it in his possession. Suguwa is played by
a very young and very lean Bunta Sugawara years before he was to make it
big in Yakuza pictures. On the way back though, his plane is shot down
by American fighters and the next thing he knows he has been taken on by
a Chinese freighter headed for Shanghai. With some interesting cargo.
These are slave traders of female flesh headed
with their valuables to be auctioned off in China – and in their cramped
dingy hold are a dozen Japanese women ready to go to market. All of them
were prostitutes back home except for Rumi (Utako Mitsuya) who thought
she had signed up to be a nurse and is the picture of innocence in her
pigtails. She wanders out on deck against the rules and is whipped on the
orders of the tough sexy female “Queen” who is the cohort of the captain.
Played by Yoko Mihara, she puts the yum back into yummy and was apparently
nicknamed the “Monroe of Japan” and it wasn’t because she had a habit of
marrying famous men. She is a sexual tinderbox and appeared in a few hard-edged
Teruo Ishii films like “Pier of Woman Body”, “Zone of Black Line”, “Yellow
Line” and “Sexy Line” and later on when she had put on a few years and
a few pounds she showed up in some films that have cult scribbled on them
with a broken crayon - “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs”, “Convent of the
Holy Beast” and “Prisoner Scorpion 701”.
As a gentleman and soldier Suguwa of course tries
to free the women – unaware of the irony apparently that the Japanese army
maintained “comfort women” as one of their imperial policies. He gets caught
though and as a punishment is tossed into the brig with the scantily clad
women – punish me some more please. Then the pirates in their pirate regalia
show up under the command of an open-shirted Tetsuro Tanba and they board
the ship and kill all the crew except for Suguwa who they take a liking
to even after he beats up most of them and Queen who they take a lusting
for. They are also pleased to discover the cargo. The pirates take the
women back to an island where they plan to brand and sell them to the highest
bidder and to sell Suguwa to an agent for the Americans. Things begin heating
up a bit with a heat-seeking belly dance from Queen, a big cat fight and
a final explosion of violence when Suguwa breaks the women out and they
decide to fight for their lives after a quick lesson in firearms. They
learn quickly.
My rating for this film: 6.5