Rating: **
Review Date: 6/2/24
Cast: Etsuko Shiomi, Misa Ohara, Tatsuya Nanjo, cameo by Sonny Chiba
Maki (Etsuko Shiomi) is the leader of a girl gang called The Wildcats. She's an extremely skilled fighter, but she's perpetually angry and has a fierce attitude that keeps getting her and her girls into trouble. A chance run-in with an equally obstinate rich bitch named Takako (Misa Ohara) leads to an escalating cycle of revenge and humiliation because neither one will back down. Maki eventually ends up in prison, but breaks out when she learns that her girls are being drugged and sold overseas. Takako calls a truce so that the two of them, plus tragic fighter Eto (Tatsuya Nanjo), can focus their energies on a common Yakuza foe.
As a fan of Etsuko Shiomi, I was thrilled to find this as part of a Sonny Chiba collection, which is odd because he has exactly one scene and less than a minute of screen time. The film constantly teases about him returning from America as a great martial artist, but that moment never comes, leaving Maki to fight her battles alone. Etsuko Shiomi gives a great performance and her energetic fight scenes are full of intensity and flair, even though a lot of her hits don't actually connect. Unfortunately, her bizarre hairdo is a constant distraction. Tatsuya Nanjo also gives a good performance as an uncanny Sonny Chiba wanna-be, and his fight scenes are just as good as Shiomi's. Misa Ohara is extremely pretty and handles her role as a rich, arrogant, spoiled, and naïve bitch perfectly.
It's unusual to see Etsuko Shiomi in what effectively amounts to a pinky violence film full of sex, drugs, violence, mayhem, corrupution, torture, nudity, and rape. Thankfully, she's spared from most of the humiliation and only serves as a force of violent retribution. Interestingly, that's where the film also falls short. We don't know anything about Maki, other than she's extremely violent and likes to wear a shirt with the number 13 emblazoned on it. We don't know her backstory, her motivation, her goals, or why she's angry all the time, and we're never invited to care about her. This ambiguity extends to the film's title as well. What are the 13 steps of Maki? Who knows? Perhaps it's an obscure manga adaptation, which might fit with her somewhat comical and larger than life persona. We also don't know anything about the girls in her gang, so it's hard to develop any empathy for them. Every situation that Maki finds herself in is resolved by fighting, which is entertaining, but ultimately hollow. There's no real story to speak of and no redemption or closure, and the film ends abruptly with Maki walking alone on a beach with her angry tears. Revenge is a fine motivator and story device, but the setup feels disproportionately petty to the amount of mindless violence that ensues. This probably boils down to the cultural importance of saving face, which is completely lost on me.