Rating: **
Review Date: 4/1/18
Director: Teruo Ishii
Cast: Reiko Ike
"From now on, we stand together naked."
Inoshika Ocho (Reiko Ike) returns in this disappointingly trashy sequel to "Sex And Fury" (1973). Ocho decides to visit an old friend, but is ambushed, kidnapped, tortured, and framed for murder along the way. She vows revenge and immediately starts searching for clues. She discovers that her enemies are using a group of young girls as prostitutes and drug mules, which leads to numerous tasteless shots of contraband being inserted and removed from the girls' private parts. Ocho also uncovers a corrupt gang boss (is there any other kind?) and weaves him into her revenge plans. The final showdown is a bizarre free-for-all between a small group of bad guys and a couple dozen naked girls from two different female gangs. Why they all fight in the nude is a complete mystery.
"Female Yakuza Tale" has no illusions about being anything other than a nasty sexploitation flick, and the gratuitous sex scenes are sleazy and unpleasant. The nudity is also baffling and serves no discernable purpose. The strange rock/jazz soundtrack is disorienting and the shaky camera work is infuriating to watch. Apart from a superb performance by Reiko Ike and some interesting cinematography, the film is complete garbage. It's a shame that an actress of her caliber was confined to working in the lurid "pinky violence" genre. While the entire film is gonzo and over the top, a few moments stand out above the rest, including a guy who throws a bullet into someone's nostril, a woman who blows snot onto a guy's face while he's looking up her skirt, a guy who gets his moustache shot off and it lands on someone else's face, and women who receive drug injections in their breasts. In a nod to the original, Reiko has one nude fight scene which takes place during the opening credits. It's somewhat stylish, but numerous frames were dropped to comply with Japanese censorship laws, which results in a visually jarring and clumsily edited sequence. And it's all downhill after that.