Joshuu Sasori: Difference between revisions

{{quote|"To be deceived is...a woman's crime"|'''Nami Matsushima''', ''Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion''}}

The '''''Female Prisoner Scorpion''''' (Japanese: ''Joshuu Sasori'') series are [[Girls Behind Bars|women in prison]] films (suprise!) from Japan's [[Toei]] Studio. The first was director Shunya Itou's debut in 1972, and he also directed the second and third; the first four star Meiko Kaji in the title role. Several different lead actresses, reboots and plotlines, not necessarily anything to do with each other, followed her departure. They originate from a manga series begun in 1970 by Touru Shinohara.

Unlike the vast majority of women's prison films, though, they don't exist as [[Girl-On-Girl Is Hot|an excuse for porn]]; well, not exactly. While they lie squarely in the Pinky Violence genre, meaning there's [[Fan Service|plenty of sex]], violence and exploitation, they are also intermittently surreal, intelligently shot/directed and feminist in message. It's as if Shunya Itō, nowadays known as an arthouse director, was handed the script for something [[Porn Withwith Plot|much more conventional]] and decided to see how far he could subvert it without actually changing the story.

* [[Eye Scream]]: This, in a very obvious way regarding the warden, and in a rather less obvious way concerning Matsu. [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Keen-eyed viewers]] will notice that much of the shot design, from her character design integrating long hair and floppy hat, to camera angles, serves to obscure one of her eyes a lot of the time. Japanese viewers will probably get this, while westerners might well miss it - it's a reference to youkai, Japanese ghost/demon/evil spirits, which frequently have only one eye. The trope crops up in [[Ge Ge GeGeGeGe no Kitaro|various works]]. Additionally, there's multiple moments of close-ups on eyes with a knife held readied in front of them.

* [[Fan Service]]: Interestingly, the decision to star in the ''Joshuu Sasori'' series was an attempt to avert fanservice by Meiko Kaji, who moved to the Toei studio when her former studio, Nikkatsu, decided to switch their output entirely to adult films in the [[Porn Withwith Plot|"Roman Porno" style]]. However, this was the first role she played that involved nudity. To what extent the films are fanservice or [[Fan Disservice|a subversion thereof]] is fairly open to debate; while the ultimate message is clearly one of female empowerment, it's still a film that opens with female prisoners forced to exercise nude while watched by leering male guards. Then again, the leering is so grotesquely emphasised and the nudity clearly an exercise in humiliation and assertion of power that this scene comes over very ambiguously indeed. Which is, of course, the point.

* [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made Onon Drugs?]]: The hallmark of the series is its combination of this unexpectedly savage version of the subject matter with repeated recourse to out-of-left-field surrealism.