Criminal Woman: Killing Melody Film Review

If you ever want to dip your toes into Japanese Pinky Violence, this film is a good place to start. It has most of the elements of the genre - women in prison, cat fights, gratuitous nudity, scummy Yakuza, torture, indifferent sex, rape, revenge and Girl Power. Female bonding in a cruel world of beastly men. But this film also has the two Queens of Pinky Violence, the malevolent stare of Reiko Ike and the pouty lips of Miki Sugimoto. Their presence gives any film a jolt of electricity. They have two big fights against one another, starting with knives and ending with just beating the hell out of each other - but beneath it is respect and perhaps more.

Blaring horns introduces the viewer to Maki (Ike) in a topless gogo bar when she lunges at a group of Yakuza with a blade, killing one and wounding a couple more as the topless dancers look on. She has her reasons. Good ones. A murdered father and being raped. The theme song breaks in, "Call me good for nothing, but just as the wind blows where it will, I'll live my carefree life as i please.". She is sent to prison where she gets four cell mates; Yukie the pickpocket (Masami Sôda), Natsuko the motorcycle thief (Chiyoko Kazama), Kaoru the prostitute who beat up a customer (Yumiko Katayama). And lastly Masayo (Miki) caught cheating in gambling and using a razor to fight her way out. Her tattooed body proclaims Yakuza. She is the woman of a Yakuza boss. Tough women but tender.

There is immediate friction between Masayo and Maki and a duel is called for. A long thin string of cloth is cut and each end is inserted into the mouth of them. The first to spit it out loses and though Masayo beats the hell out of Maki, she refuses to let the cloth go. This is how friendships are formed in prison. Maki is the last one to be released after a few years. Yukie, Natsuko and Kaoru meet her and Maki pulls them into her plan. Revenge and money. To destroy the Oba Clan that killed her father. She does a Yojimbo on them. Gets two rival clans killing one another.

Only fly in the ointment is that Masayo is in the Oba Clan, the woman of the boss. She quickly figures out what is going on and tells them, I understand why you are doing this but I am Oba. But female bonds formed with blood and bruises are stronger than steel. Great little film that nicely balances the exploitation aspects and the female empowerment aka killing Yakuza aspects. The director is Atsushi Mihori who makes the film look great and has his own duel between multiple close-ups of Reiko and then Miki and then Reiko.