An Action Asia Flashback! A film so colorful, baroque and operatic that it makes the hyperkinetic cinema of directors like Dario Argento and Sergio Leone seem positively restrained by comparison, Female Convict Scorpion remains one of the most jaw-droppingly over-the-top viewing experiences in film history. Japanese action, horror, and exploitation films of the '60s and '70s transcended their generic plots with an innovative, intensely stylized visual approach. Nowhere is this technique more evident than in this astounding film. The first three entries were directed by Shunya Ito, who made his debut with the original film. The films chronicle the vicious escapades of the silent prisoner "Scorpion" (the striking Meiko Kaji). Ito takes standard post-feminist exploitation material and refracts it through a pop-art prism of Kabuki theatre influences, candy-colored surrealism, and crazed camerawork. This theatrical screening – in all its whacked-out Cinemascope glory – is a rare treat indeed, and this breathtaking restored print is not to be missed. "An absolutely phenomenal surrealist-cum-exploitation picture...one of the truly genuine masterpieces of violent 1970's cinema".
