PinkY Violence IN YOUR FACE!!!

[Takuma]

Female Convict Yakuza (女囚やくざ) (Japan, 1974) [TV] – 3.5/5
Reiko Ike made her final delinquent girl appearance in this atmospheric crime drama released in the waning days of Pinky Violence (*). The general impression at the time was that Ike was getting a bit old for delinquent girl roles, which is probably why she’s taking a back seat role here to pass the torch. Yuko Horikoshi and Tsunehiko Watase play bank robbers who are thrown in jail (not actual prison) where they meet Ike. She plans their escape in hopes of getting her hands on the stolen money which is being held by additional members of the gang Teppei Nagahama and (cute & subtly spunky) Kyoko Naito who are in the hiding. The police, a jealous accomplice from the bank, and a small yakuza gang lead by Harumi Sone are also after the money. This film was intended as the first in a new series (as confirmed by the trailer) that never materialized beyond the opening picture, which is a bit of a shame. Though the film is low key, low budget and largely void of the adrenaline rush found in the best Pinky Violence films, it works quite well as an atmospheric crime drama following a group of social outcasts hiding from the police. The group dynamic comes through well and Ike in particular is surprisingly good in a role that mainly involves her hanging out bored in the background. Lead Horikoshi on the other hand is a bit of a flop with a bland presence that led to no further starring roles (holding on to her robes probably didn’t increase her market value either). Things didn’t work out any better for Masahide Shinozuka, a long time assistant director helming his first and last own picture here.

* The golden age of Pinky Violence came to a rapid end in early 1974 when karate movies replaced them as Toei’s most popular B-films in theatrical double bills. Premiering on March 1, 1974, one month after The Street Fighter had initiated the domestic karate film boom, Female Convict Yakuza perhaps never stood much of a chance at the box office.

Additional note: though the film’s kanji title is Joshu yakuza (Female Convict Yakuza), the furigana reads Suke yakuza (Girl Yakuza).

[Jason C]

That is exciting! I have the poster but have never seen Female Yakuza Convict.

[Takuma]

I forgot to mention this earlier, but Female Yakuza Convict (女囚やくざ ) (1974) has finally been unearthed and is airing in HD on Toei Channel this week!
edit: d'oh. It's Female Convict Yakuza of course. I didn't notice I had spelled the words in wrong order until now...
- https://www.toeich.jp/program/1TT000003569/202310

[Jason C]

Thank you Takuma. Awesome post as always

[BW Haggar]

Thanks as always for posting this Takuma - I was completely unaware of this show, so as a big Toei PV fan this is awesome and fascinating new knowledge.

Love the images you've posted too - some of these will be desktop wallpapers for me if I can get 'em to stretch out enough.

[Takuma]

Playgirl: EP 203 “Girl Boss vs. Playgirl” (Feb. 19, 1973)

I think most people here are aware of Toei's classic sexy action drama Playgirl (1969-1974), and particularly episode 203 “Girl Boss vs. Playgirl” (女番長対プレイガール), which guest stars Miki Sugimoto as a sukeban leader. Toei released a best-of DVD selection about 15 years ago, but this episode was unfortunately not included. Thankfully it aired on Toei Channel.

The episode begins with a delinquent girl gunned down while running for her life (topless, I may add). The playgirls, a group of butt-kicking ladies specializing in spy missions, then go undercover as delinquent girls to catch the male crooks responsible. Enter Miki Sugimoto and Yukie Kagawa as two rival girl bosses, and lone wolf Shingo Yamashiro who's got his own hidden objectives.

There's some good fun to be had with this episode, which is both embracing and poking fun of the girl boss genre, something that much of the regular cast (e.g. Yumiko Katayama, Yayoi Watanabe, Junko Miyazono) were more than familiar with. That being said, this episode is not really any holy grail of girl boss entertainment, just a fun, low-key, addition to the genre.

I shall refrain from writing too much about the series, since I've only seen a few dozen episodes. Basically, the series follows the standard Japanese detective show formula ala Key Hunter with the cast taking turns starring in different episodes, only all female and with an added brief nudity. The show ran 287 episodes on TV Tokyo at 21:00 every Monday night. The start was pretty tame, but a brief topless nudity was already seen in EP 6 which aired May 12, 1969 (I've not seen episodes 2, 3 or 5 to compare) and such scenes would become a regular treat as the show went on.

The heroines all held positions as Secret International Insurance Inspectors (as opposed to Secret Int. Police like Key Hunter) though the (lethal) insurance scam inspections soon became secondary and the girls were getting involved in outlandish yakuza plots and even kaidan ghost stories (many episodes were directed by Nobuo Kanagawa) on their own.

The series had quite a few cast changes over the years, but always retained major star power, especially if you were a Pinky Violence or Toei genre cinema fan. Mako Midori (EP 1-26) and Bunjaku Han (EP 6-63) were part of the original cast, Reiko Oshida joined for EP 51-85, Yumiko Katayama from EP 75, Yayoi Watanabe from EP 162, Junko Miyazono for EP 171-259 and Yuriko Hishimi from 217. Tamaki Sawa played the leader throughout the series' run. Tatsuo Umemiya did the episode preview narration for the first 26 episodes, after that the girls would take turns doing the (often awesome!) narration.

The guest list included Miki Sugimoto, Tetsuro Tamba, Joe Shishido, Yukie Kagawa and lots of other Toei regulars like Toru Yuri, Toru Abe, Yoko Mihara and Teruo Yoshida. Maki Carrousel and Peter appeared several times too, often together! I might also mention that while Reiko Ike did not appear in the original show, she did a guest appearance in the follow-up series Playgirl Q (1974-1976) in EP 14.

One more thing must be mentioned: the awesome, outrageous episode titles! 全裸の美女は朝狙え! (“Aim at the All-Nude Beauty in the Morning”), 女は裸になって強くなる, (“Women Get Strong Naked”) and 女åé«˜æ ¡ç”Ÿãƒ»ç•ªé•·æ®ºäººäº‹ä»¶ (“High School Girl Boss Murder Case”) are just a few examples.



Miki Sugimoto and Shingo Yamashiro


Yumiko Katayama




Yukie Kagawa

[darkamyy]

I don't suppose anyone here is particularly familiar with manga/gekiga?

I've been trying to trace back the origins of pinky violence (or more accurately sukeban/furyo koi shoujo media) and so far I haven't got back much further than 1969. 1970 saw a big spike in sukeban popularity with (at least) 7 films being released that year - the first Stray Cat Rock movie, 2 Joshi Gakuen movies and 4(!) Kokosei Bancho movies. This popularity no doubt paved the way for what we all know as pinky violence. Before 1970 however the appearances of sukeban movies were much more sparse. In 1969 there was only Onna Bancho - Jingi Yaburi (perhaps this could be considered the first 100% sukeban/girl gang movie) and later that year Zankoku Onna Rinchi which was credited as the main influence for the expansion of the genre.

Before 1968 there is little to no delinquent girl movies (yeah there's a few movies with shady female gambler characters but nothing like the girl gangs we saw in the 70's). HOWEVER I'm wondering if these stories were made popular in the manga world first? One creator I know who was writing these types of stories before 1970 was Bonten Taro. In 1968 he created Ocho Inoshika which would later be adapted as Sex & Fury. In 1969 he also created Konketsuji Rika which would be adapted into the Rica trilogy.

So the foetus of pinky violence could either be regarded as Onna Bancho - Jingi Yaburi OR it could have been popular in manga before then (but I don't really know anything about manga and am struggling to find anyone with knowledge of manga of that period).

[Takuma]

A few words about one of my favourite Pinky Violence movies, Criminal Woman: Killing Melody (前科おんな 殺し節) (1973), or to be more precise, its theatrical poster. I've included part of the explanation as a screenshot since the forum doesn't support furigana.





There is a rather outrageous grammar play in evidence here. As you know, the Japanese language is written using mainly kanji characters, which are a pain in the ass to learn because there are thousands of them. That's why it was commonplace in old movie posters to give a furigana (an easy reading in simple characters) in small font above any difficult kanji. Sometimes, however, the filmmakers got sneaky and gave unorthodox furigana readings to common kanji words. In this film poster, it says “Those bastards”! However, the furigana given for the common kanji word “bastard” is actually “men”. So they literally spelled “men” as “bastards”! Pretty awesome!

The 2nd thing I wanted to point out is that the poster actually advertises this as the 1st film in a new series. Of course, no sequels ever followed. It may have been that the timing was just too late: the film came out Oct. 27, 1973, when the Girl Gang genre had already passed its peak. In 1974 Karate films would begin to replace Girl Gang movies as the B-features for Yakuza films in double bills.

Also related... I brought up Shigeru Okada and Kanji Amao as the Godfathers of Pinky Violence in the other thread, but I think there's another producer duo that has been criminally neglected: Kineo Yoshimine (吉峰甲åå¤«) and Kenji Takamura (高村賢治).

Yoshimine was the producer on The Delinquent Girl Boss series (ずべ公番長), the Wandering Ginza Butterfly series (銀蝶渡り鳥), the Female Prisoner Scorpion series (女囚さそり), Criminal Woman: Killing Melody (前科おんな　殺し節), Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs (０課の女　赤い手錠) and later in the karate era the Sister Street Fighter series (女必殺拳), The Great Chase (華麗なる追跡) and Dragon Princess (必殺女拳士). Takamura served as co-producer in most of them

Unfortunately little to none has been written about these two men. But looking at their filmography, I think it's Yoshimine and Takamura (alongside Norifumi Suzuki) who brought the feminist push into Pinky Violence much more than Lustful Okada or Porno Amao.

Stills from Criminal Woman: Killing Melody (前科おんな　殺し節) (1973), produced by Yoshimine and Takamura.

[Takuma]

A couple of Reiko Oshida stills and photos!

[agent999]

Third Window posted on BR.com that they're releasing the Pink series next year on Blu in the UK (presumably they've teamed up with Rapid Eye, which explains the English friendliness of their disc):

Pink series Vol. 1 & 2: INFLATABLE SEX DOLL OF THE WASTELANDS & GUSHING PRAYER
in Jan/Feb 2020

Pink series Vol. 3 & 4: ABNORMAL FAMILY & BLUE FILM WOMAN
in spring 2020

Pink series Vol. 5 & 6: WOMEN HELL SONG & UNDERWATER LOVE
in autumn

Also, a nice Shinya Tsukamoto triple:

KILLING/HAZE/ADVENTURES OF ELECTRIC ROD BOY
in April/May 2020

[47lab]

I remember REM mentioned this "tribute to Keiko Sato" release last year. There is supposedly a volume 3 & 4 also forthcoming with those two comprised of blu ray releases of Masayuki Suo's ABNORMAL FAMILY: OLDER BROTHER'S BRIDE (pink film parody of Ozu's TOKYO STORY) & Mamoru Watanabe's WOMEN HELL SONG (pink film take on THE RED PEONY GAMBLER series) and Kan Mukai's BLUE FILM WOMAN.

[agent999]

Pink Films Vol. 1 & 2: Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands & Gushing Prayer, supposedly English friendly:

https://www.amazon.de/Pink-Films-Vol...gateway&sr=8-1

[Jason C]

I'll have try and get my hands on that release. Thank you Marshall

[47lab]

yeah, I pretty much was glued on Rieko Ohara the whole time. She was a real babe back in the day. Shame the way her life played out in her later years.

[Marshall Crist]

Thanks! I missed out on the chance to fund my holy grail, DELINQUENT GIRL BOSS: BALLAD OF YOKOHAMA HOODS, so I wanted to make sure to give something back. Glad to hear someone else enjoyed this! I found it light, but fun.