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Released by: Impulse Pictures
Released on: May 8th, 2018.
Director: Koyo Ohara
Cast: Naomi Tani, Tokuko Watanabe, Michio Murakami
Year: 1977
Purchase From Diabolik DVD
A woman masturbates. She spits on her hand to make it a bit easier but goes at it in her prison cell, other inmates seemingly asleep nearby. She calls out to her 'honey' through the window but there's no one there. Guards come into the room and put a stop to her display. Her cellmates, now awake, assume she' gone crazy. She's removed from the cell… and cue the opening credits!
We flash back to a scene where a woman remembers being beaten and raped by her husband as she lies in her cell and smokes a cigarette. From there, an aggressive lesbian makes her move on the woman who was smoking, intent on showing her why women are better than men! They have rad lesbian sex when the aggressor rubs her ass on the nipples of the more submissive inmate!
A woman (Naomi Tani) flashes back to a guy going through his lady's stuff - he bought it all for her so he should be able to do what he wants, so he says, even if he did make her work for it. He pimped her out, we're lead to believe - but her legit job is bartending. He leaves her, he loves Mari, and she is upset. Later this woman sits at a bar and drinks. There's a fight outside and some dude with a guitar gets his ass kicked and tossed inside. She brings him upstairs and gives him some tea and allows him to spend the night and then jumps his bone later that evening. The next morning, he sings her a song. It turns out his name is Kenichi Mizushima and he's horny enough that they go at it a second time. She leaves her giant, goofy red socks on but that doesn't dissuade him, and then a short time later they go at it a third time! It turns out that this is the inmate known only as 101.
The next day the inmates are out working in the field. Miki is in charge and the newbie is kissing her ass - the other inmates don't like that and want to teach her a lesson. They do this by throwing her to the ground and stuffing a snake down her pants! Apparently 'Mr. Snake says he wants to taste the lesbian!' but Miki puts a stop to it quickly. Then, after it's resolved, the newbie sings a song that flashback girl recognizes as one of Kenichi's songs - it's a hit now - it's a song about a little pigeon that lost its dreams.
We flashback again to 101's time with Kenichi and her pimp shows up - it's been a while but he's back and ready to take be nice. He offers to help get Kenichi a record deal. She and Kenichi celebrate by having sex - AGAIN! Of course, the pimp guy, who is also a junkie, is scamming them and we learn how and why she wound up in jail at this point.
Back in the prison the girls all have a bath at the command of one of the guards. One of the girls cuts the other and licks her blood before rubbing her under the water. The other inmates can't help but notice what's going on. But 101 interrupts the newbie to ask about the song - that turns into a fight. Later in the rec room the girls watch TV and Kenichi shows up singing his new hit! When 101 tries to get close to the TV, another fight breaks out and she's tossed in solitary where there are a lot of caterpillars for some reason. Here she once again flashes back to sex with Kenichi.
From here, lesbians are caught in the act and separated, also tossed into the hole, while 101 is once again let back into the general population where the prisoners throw rocks at the guard while out working in the fields. They then dare to make an escape - 101 needs to reconnect with Keneichi (who is now a big star and drives a Pontiac Firebird)!
This one clocks in at seventy-minutes, so it's a pretty quick watch. It's also got a pretty cool score with some wonky synth-tracks on it for good measure. The movie itself is more or less a by-the-numbers women in prison picture, it doesn't do much that we haven't seen before in other, better movies. But with that said, it delivers pretty much what you'd expect from the genre - until we get to the ending, which we won't spoil here. Didn't see that coming, so bonus points for carving out an interesting little spot for the film in its last ten minutes.
The movie is well shot, and like most of its 'Roman Porno' brethren it's interesting in how it uses certain items in the foreground of a shot to cover up some of the naughtier bits. Still, again like the rest of the line, it's still pretty graphic even if it doesn't go as far as it could have had Japanese censorship laws been different. The movie is pretty strong and quite sleazy, with the bumping and grinding sessions taking up as much of its running time as the story itself. There's a reasonable amount of style to the cinematography and a good score the help keeping things moving.
Naomi Tani, probably best known for the classic Flower And Snake, is good in the lead. She's a reasonably sympathetic character and while she's not quite on the same level as say… Meiko KAji (this was clearly inspired by the Female Convict Scorpion movies) in terms of intensity and whole hearted badassery, she's a good actress and quite capable of handling all aspects of the role.
The movie does a pretty good job of capturing a vibe of desperation and insanity within the confines of the prison. While it's clearly played for sexploitative thrills, there's a genuine darkness to many of the set pieces that take place in the jail that go a long way towards making this work.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Let's be blunt - this transfer is bad. It's murky, blurry and loaded with weird artifacting. Framed at 2.35.1. Strange checkerboard pattern appears around the text in the opening credits. The whole thing looks like it was shot through a screen door. The other entries in the line have looked quite good but this one… nope. Not sure why or what caused it but just take a look at the screen caps below - it's not hard to see that the picture quality here is a mess.
Audio is handled by a Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track with optional (white) subtitles in English only. Quality of the track is fine. There's a bit of hiss here and there but if you're not listening for it you probably won't pick up on it. Otherwise, no problems here.
No extras, just a menu offering chapter selection - that's it.
The Final Word:
Female Prisoner 101: Suck may not reinvent the women in prison movie wheel, but it does what it does quite well. Naomi Tani is solid in the lead and the movie delivers enough sleazy thrills to appeal to fans of both Roman Porno films and WIP pictures. The DVD release, however, has some issues as noted above - but for now, this seems to be the only game in town.
