“Sex and Fury” Theatrical Poster
Director: Norifumi Suzuki
Cast: Reiko Ike, Akemi Negishi, Ryoko Ema, Yoko Hori, Naomi Oka, Katsumasa Uchida, Rena Ichinose, Tatsuo Endō, Yōko Mihara, Christina Lindberg
Running Time: 88 min.
By Henry McKeand
While action cinema has long been criticized as pornographic in its depictions of bloodshed and weaponry, the ‘pinky violence’ films released in Japan during the 60s and 70s are early examples of filmmakers pushing that pornographic label past the figurative. Most pink films, classified by high amounts of explicit violence and nudity, remain relatively obscure outside of Japan, but there are some that have gained small cult followings in the West.
One such film is Norifumi Suzuki’s Sex and Fury, which owes some of its lasting appeal to its purported influence on Kill Bill. There are certainly visuals and themes that will remind modern audiences of Tarantino’s epic, but Sex and Fury is a scuzzier affair than most of Kill Bill’s other Eastern influences. It’s a down-and-dirty exploitation film that also happens to be beautifully shot, and part of the appeal is Suzuki’s ability to find moments of sublimity in all of the sleaze. In this sense, it’s not hard to see why Suzuki’s work would have an effect on a wave of later filmmakers, Tarantino included, who went further in combining grindhouse subject matter with arthouse sensibilities.
The film kicks off with the cold-hearted slaying of a detective in front of his horrified daughter, Ocho. Jumping forward in time, the rest of the plot centers around Ocho (played as an adult by pink film staple Reiko Ike) as she searches for vengeance using her skills as a swordfighter and gambler. The seemingly simple premise is complicated by a handful of B-stories introduced early on, the most notable of which being the star-crossed romance between a tormented British spy (played by the Queen of Sleaze herself, Christina Lindberg) and a righteous Japanese rebel (Masataka Naruse). The script is loaded with infidelity and political corruption and promises made to dying men, but these detours mostly serve to pile on the requisite nudity and melodrama.
The film is at its strongest when it focuses on Ocho’s obsessive quest to avenge her father. Ike has a magnetic screen presence, and she uses her strong physicality and emotional range to turn Ocho into a character as savage as she is heroic.
This is best exemplified in what is perhaps the film’s most memorable scene: a chaotic sword battle in which a naked Ocho takes on a horde of gangsters. Suzuki could have fallen back on the lurid appeal of a naked woman slicing through men with a katana, but there’s an intentionality to the filmmaking that elevates the set piece. As time slows down and Ichiro Araki’s funk score builds, the camera captures the flurry of chaotic motion and blood so calmly that the scene starts to feel like a fun, hypnotic dream. Through Suzuki’s direction, sloppy and brutal attacks take on an almost balletic quality. By the time the violence moves outside into an idyllic snowfall, the sequence has become downright beautiful.
Key to this scene, and several others, is Ike’s dedication to material that could have been cheap and ridiculous. Uninterested in traditional vanity, she’s unafraid to play Ocho with a snarling, coil spring intensity. During the naked swordfight, she resembles a cornered animal, leaping and slashing at enemies that she can only overpower through sheer ferocity. She’s desperate yet in control—vulnerable yet fearless.
The choreography throughout isn’t the most deliberate or complex, and the film seems more interested in the complications that would realistically arise in close quarters struggles. Killers get in each other’s way and bump into walls and charge through crowds with knives and wildly grab for any body part they can get their hands on. Suzuki understands that street level viciousness can be just as thrilling as well-planned scenes of flashy martial arts.
A pink film can’t get by on just violence, and the sex is more frequent, and often more stylized, than the action. The sexual half of the film’s pinky equation runs the gamut from memories of tender lovemaking to scenes of torture and sexual assault. This violence against women should be no surprise to anyone seeking out this kind of 70s genre fare, but the predictability doesn’t make it any less off-putting. Still, its sexual politics are nowhere near as noxious as something like Hanzo the Razor. There isn’t anything romanticized about the film’s many predators, and the script isn’t afraid to show how systemic abuse spreads and permeates through all of its characters. That being said, your enjoyment will vary depending on your ability to stomach these scenes.
Sex and Fury is edgy, well-made grindhouse entertainment that balances its formal experimentation and sense of 70s cool with an engaging and uncompromising revenge story. It’s perfect if you’re in the mood for an authentic exploitation film that manages to feel fresh even now.
(Plus, a scene full of knife-wielding nuns is the perfect teaser for Suzuki’s nunsploitation cult classic School of the Holy Beast, released just a year later)
Henry McKeand’s Rating: 8/10
