Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972) Review

“Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Shunya Ito
Story: Toru Shinohara
Cast: Meiko Kaji, Fumio Watanabe, Kayoko Shiraishi, Yukie Kagawa, Yuki Arasa, Hideo Murota
Running Time: 94 min.

By Kyle Warner

In the opening moments of Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, we find our antihero Matsu the Scorpion (Meiko Kaji) chained up in solitary confinement. She’s been locked away for a year after the bloodshed she caused in the previous film. The series’ familiar theme song “Urami Bushi” plays over the credits while Matsu grips a stolen spoon between her teeth and sharpens it against the cement floor. By the time the song is done, the spoon is sharpened to a point and made into an effective prison shiv. For while the injustice that landed her in jail has been resolved, she’s made new enemies in prison, and not all of them ended up dead by the end of the first film. Like the scorpion she is named after, Matsu bides her time, allows her opponents to think they have the upper hand, and at the last second… she strikes.

The cruel Warden Goda (Fumio Watanabe), left forever scarred by Matsu in the original film, has made it his personal mission to see her suffer. With a high-ranking bureaucrat arriving to inspect the prison, Goda allows Matsu a one-day reprieve from solitary so that she may enjoy the sun and greet the inspector on her own two feet. Matsu is barely able to stand during the inspection, making Goda believe he’s finally broken her. But when he gets too close, the dagger that had once been a spoon stabs at his face, leaving a new scar for him to remember her by.

The attack reignites the legend of Scorpion among the other female inmates, so Goda decides to humiliate her in the worst way possible. While the other women work, Matsu is tied to a tree—essentially crucified—and then gang-raped by guards in masks. The women look on in a mix of horror and disgust while Goda grins. The rape and a subsequent beating leave Matsu in terrible shape. She’s then loaded onto a truck with six other women, basically dead. However, in mid-transport, Matsu comes back to life, and kills one of the guards. Seizing their chance, the seven women make a break for it and disappear into the hills.

While the Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion takes place primarily behind bars, Jailhouse 41 is about the law’s hunt for the fugitives. Matsu becomes an unlikely leader to the other women. In the group she also finds a new nemesis in the child killer Hide Oba (Kayoko Shiraishi), though the two women are more alike than either would ever likely admit. The women go from one forgotten (haunted?) town to the next, playing hit-and-runs with Warden Goda’s men all the while trying to avoid the many traps that have been set for them.

In almost every way imaginable, Jailhouse 41 is a darker chapter than the one that came before it. It’s also a better film, I think. There is still plenty of objectionable content in the sequel, but the director’s intent seems clearer, as does his symbolism. Women again face horrific situations at the hands of men in Jailhouse 41 but, unlike the original film, here it’s clear that the filmmakers share our horror, and the camera is not caught ogling the ladies. For exploitation cinema, it’s a delicate balancing act between showing an offensive act and appearing to glorify it. Jailhouse 41 performs that balancing act better than the original.

I mentioned symbolism in the previous paragraph; there’s a lot of in in Shunya Ito’s Scorpion films. Ito looked up to Nagisa Oshima and Luis Bunuel, both of whom mixed politics with surrealism in their films, and it’s clear that Ito’s trying to say something about Japan and the country’s nationalist past. However, beyond the Japanese flag appearing at odd times in the original Scorpion, I must confess I didn’t understand everything he was going for. In Jailhouse 41, political and social commentary is easier to read, making for a deeper film experience. One sequence has a couple rowdy Japanese men on a tour bus fondly recalling “the good old days” of the war when they could rape Chinese women at gunpoint and get away with it. That they then see one of the female escapees as a similarly disposable human being is no big stretch of the imagination. The Scorpion films, with perhaps Jailhouse 41 in particular, are a raging war cry against Japanese nationalism and power. And because the “hero” of Scorpion is a woman behind bars, Japanese power is here represented as corrupt lawmen—but the perhaps the more important thing is that they are men. In a way, Matsu the Scorpion more closely resembles the haunted ghosts of Ringu, The Grudge, and Retribution than any mortal avenger of Japanese film. She is a wraith. She is feminist rage with a prison shiv, and she seeks to not only satisfy her own need for vengeance but also (when it’s convenient) exact revenge on behalf of fellow women who’ve been wronged by lecherous and deceitful men.

Meiko Kaji (Stray Cat Rock) further settles into the role of Matsu the Scorpion. Don’t hold me to it, but I don’t think Matsu speaks a word until we’re over an hour into the film. (Kaji’s songs are played often, though, each of them cool and haunting.) In total Kaji might have three different lines of dialogue in the entire movie. Though given a mostly silent role, Kaji is no less intimidating, and really sells Matsu the Scorpion as one of the baddest, meanest antiheroes in all of cinema. I’m still not convinced that the Scorpion series doesn’t belong on the horror shelf. Matsu the Scorpion’s kills certainly belong alongside the best of Voorhees and Myers. One such kill in Jailhouse 41 finds a dead guard’s manhood replaced by a large tree branch. It’s… pretty messed up.

One complaint about the film would be that five out of the six women Matsu is in league with are basically interchangeable. We know them by their crimes (which are read off by a ghost woman reminiscent of the prophet specter from Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood), but beyond their past misdeeds we never get to know them much better. Only Kayoko Shiraishi’s Hide gets some serious character development, and the audience is put into knots trying to decide whether to sympathize with her or hate her guts. Whereas Meiko Kaji performs her role with steely silence, Shiraishi (Yamato) is loud, abrasive, and has all the crazed energy of an angry hyena. From the start, Matsu and Hide hate one another, but as they’re forced to rely on each other they become unlikely allies, making for some of the most interesting character interactions of the series.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 is one of the most thought-provoking and visually striking pieces of exploitation cinema you’re ever likely to see. It’s definitely not for all audiences, but I thought it was excellent.

Kyle Warner’s Rating: 8/10

About this release: Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 arrives on Blu-ray in the US and the UK in the box set of the four original Scorpion films from Arrow Video. As of right now, Arrow has not said whether they have plans to make the films available individually, like the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series. On the Jailhouse 41 disc, we get a few new interviews; critic Kier-La Janisse, Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp, and Scorpion production designer Tadayuki Kuwana. My favorite of the interviews is with Janisse. She puts the Scorpion series (and Jailhouse 41 in particular) into historical perspective not just as a female revenge movie or a women’s prison film, but explains its importance as a piece of feminist cinema. It’s the longest of the disc’s interviews and the most interesting. Jasper Sharp gives us a rundown of director Shunya Ito’s credits, most of which remain totally obscure to Western audiences. Ito only has 14 credits as a director in his four decade long career, with his latest coming in 2013. I for one would be very happy to see some of Ito’s other works, just to see if they’re as crazy and visually interesting as his Scorpion films. Tadayuki Kuwana shares some of his memories of working alongside Ito on the Scorpion films. The series’ production design is a big part of its success so I enjoyed hearing from his experiences on set.

Now then, I must comment on the picture quality of the new Blu-rays: it’s definitely lacking. Arrow says they were supplied original film negatives from Toei and they gave it a 2K restoration for this release, so this seems to be a case of poor source materials and not a transfer gone wrong. Murky, grainy, and very blue (I’m talking A Snake of June levels of blue at times), the first two films of the set don’t look all that great in comparison to other films from the time period that’ve been ported to Blu-ray, by this company or many others. Having not seen the films in theatres and with no instant access to the previous DVDs, I can’t say whether this picture is representative of how the films have always looked, or if this is a noticeable upgrade from the picture of the old DVD. The mono soundtrack is good, at least. It’s a very impressive box set (lovely original art, too), but the video definitely does leave something to be desired.