IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Diagonaldi Very well executed

Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

gavin6942 After being set up and deceived by Sugimi (Natsuyagi Isao), a conniving and crooked detective she had fallen in love with, Matsushima Nami's desire for revenge knows no bounds. Her failed attempt at stabbing Sugimi on the steps of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters results in her doing hard time in a female prison run by sadistic male guards. To Sugimi's surprise, Matsushima refuses to testify against him, and now the sheer fact that she knows such secrets makes her a liability. So Sugimi and the Japanese mafia orchestrate a plan whereby Matsushima will succumb to an "accidental" death in prison. They enlist the help of Kagiri, another female inmate with ties to both Sugimi and the mafia, thus their formidable plan is quickly set in motion.Amazingly, amidst so much gritty, dirty stuff, the film still has an artistic flourish, such as the loss of the heroine's virginity symbolized with a Japanese flag. What the message is, I do not know, but it is visually striking. We also have color-coded uniforms, which make it easy to tell the "good" guys from the "bad" guys and add an interesting balance.For those less interested in the art and technique, and more interested in the exploitation aspect, they will be happy to know that there is plenty in the way of shower scenes... if you want to see a few dozen naked women scrubbing each other, you probably won't be disappointed.Arrow Video has released this film and its first three sequels in a box set. I commend them for this and love the effort that went into the special features. Unfortunately, the picture looks really washed-out. Knowing Arrow, they were working with the best materials possible, so this may mean that a good-looking negative ceases to exist (or perhaps never did).

mmushrm Just watched Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion 39years after it came out and it is still a good movie.This is the 1st of the Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion series (I had actually watched it backwards from 4 to 1), and it shows how the "Scorpion" ended up in prison and how hard she is. The Scorpion is HARD.The movie has all the prison exploitation themes, sadistic guards, naked prisoners, mean prisoners, torture etc. But it also has the Scorpion; imagine Cool Hand Luke but who does not talk, with no humour, a willingness and readiness to kill/injure/maim her tormentors and a single mindedness quest for vengeance. Meiko Kaji (actress) is more widely known for her Lady Snowblood character and movies but IMO her Scorpion Character is way more awesome.I recommend this movie just so you have a lead up to the second movie Female Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41 which is a MUST watch.

BA_Harrison Not quite as hallucinogenic and surreal as Female Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41, (the sequel, which I mistakenly watched first), but still more art-house than your average 'Women In Prison' flick, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion is a cool exploitation classic that is a must for anyone who digs cult Japanese cinema, violence, and busty nekkid oriental chicks.Meiko Kaji plays Nami Matsushima, a beautiful woman who is viciously gang-raped after her lover, Sugimi, a corrupt cop, convinces her to go undercover to help him bust a gang of drug dealers. When it becomes clear to Nami that she was merely a pawn in Sugumi's plan to help the Yakuza (by ridding them of their competition), she seeks revenge and unsuccessfully attacks her loathsome lover—an act that ends her up in prison, where she becomes the target of both a sadistic warden and a female prisoner turned assassin.Just like any self-respecting Western W.I.P. flick, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion contains plenty of nudity, sadistic guards, equally sadistic inmates, and the obligatory lesbian sex scene (when Matsushima seduces a policewoman posing as a fellow prisoner). This being a Japanese movie from the 70s, however, the result is far more pleasing aesthetically, catering not only for drooling sleaze-hounds, but also for those with an eye for a well framed image. The film's cinematography is superb, with several moments being quite beautiful to behold—in particular, a post-riot sunset which turns the whole screen blood red (quite apt, seeing as the scene immediately prior to this features the film's bloodiest moment: a guard gets his head split open with a spade resulting in a geyser of blood spraying into the air).Towards the end, when an escaped Matsushima eventually hunts down the men who raped her and once again tries to kill Sugimi, the film does tend to drag a little (I wanted revenge to come a little swifter than it actually did), but this is a minor quibble with what is a very well crafted piece of exploitation.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

The_Void I've seen a handful of women in prison films and before seeing this one, hadn't seen a really good one. It's a genre closely associated with lesbian sex, torture and general sleaze and is one of the staples of the oeuvres of Italian trash directors such as Jess Franco and Joe D'Amato. Female Convict Scorpion adheres to the trends of the genre, but it does it with so much more class than the majority of genre offerings and the result is a film that transcends its trash origins into masterpiece territory. Female Convict Scorpion excellently straddles the boundary between the two types of film - its trash shot as art! Like most women in prison films, this one focuses on one particular prisoner inside a women's prison. The prisoner is Nami Matsushima, a woman betrayed by her boyfriend (a police officer with mob ties) and wrongly imprisoned. She wants revenge on the man who put her in jail, and since she knows a lot of his secrets; he wants her dead. The policeman/mobster soon decides to have one of the other prisoners arrange an "accident" for Nami Matsushima...The film starts as it means to go on; first we get a prison break that sees two prisoners hunted down and caught by the ruthless prison guards, and the next scene sees a bunch of naked women being directed about by said prison guards. There is not as much sleaze in this film as there is in my other women in prison flicks, but there's more than enough - and the fact that it doesn't go over the top means that the sleaze we do get is far more potent. The film is also rather gory, and although much of the violence is in a comic book style, seeing the blood spill is still a treat. The film features some stunning cinematography, and director Shunya Ito is obviously keen to get the art-house style across as much as possible. There's also several excellently shot sequences; the scene involving a disgruntled inmate rampaging through the showers with a shard of glass being particularly excellent. It's all topped off by a sensational performance by Meiko Kaji in the lead role, and overall; it has to be said that Female Convict Scorpion is a masterpiece that does not deserve to be missed!