Bôkô Kirisaki Jakku

Assault! Jack the Ripper! is a movie the average person will never forget, or actually, will never see. It's a rare, brutal Japanese film that includes rape, sex and murder. For fans of pinky films it's a leader in the genre. And I can see why. It's a well made film with very nice acting from all members of the cast. For anyone who's into video games, there is some great music in this that is very similar to a game called Katamari Damacy. Which is a fantastic game by the way.

The movie is about two restaurant workers who realize that the only way they can have hot sex is through killing someone. Good enough reason for me. But things begin to go seriously wrong for this Japanese Mickey and Mallory.

AJR! is definitely not for everyone. It's a very sexual and violent flick that will most likely only appeal to extreme cinema fans and brave souls willing to widen their horizons. I personally think this film kicks ass in it's depiction of no holds barred sex, violence and mayhem.

No matter where in the world, sex and violence in the cinema have always gone hand-in-hand.

Italian giallos; UK Hammer horror; the many films of Spain's Jess Franco; the trashy US gore flicks of H.G. Lewis: every country seems to have made its own contributions that combine the two elements.

Violent 'pinku' movies are the Far East's offering, and many fans of extreme cinema agree that they rule the roost as far as sexual nastiness is concerned, since almost nothing seems to be 'too taboo' to be portrayed. Assault! Jack The Ripper (a misleading title, if ever there was one, since 'Saucy Jack' is nowhere to be seen!), from director Yasuharu Hasebe, is a classic example of the genre and clearly illustrates why no-one does sleaze quite like the Japanese! After a fatal mishap with a crazy hitch-hiker, a pathetic pastry chef and a chubby domineering waitress discover that, for them, killing is a mutual aphrodisiac. They set about abducting and carving up innocent women (more often than not, by stabbing them in the genitals!) in order to fuel their sex life, but, when the chef eventually decides to go solo on his murder sprees, their bizarre relationship begins to crumble.

With umpteen steamy sex scenes, a couple of repulsive rapes, and loads of grisly deaths, Assault! is not a film for your 'casual' viewer. The killers are completely callous and, although the numerous crotch stabbings are not explicitly shown, the sheer offensiveness of the acts (coupled with some suitably yucky sound effects) is enough to upset most 'normal' people. Rabid fans of politically incorrect exploitation, however, will have a field day watching the killers as they indulge in all manner of wickedness, including a marvellously depraved finalé, in which an entire room-full of nurses are rapidly dispatched.

And if all that excess wasn't enough, solid acting, good production values, and a great score all go to ensure that Assault! is an experience that you won't forget in a hurry.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

During the mid-1970s and early 80's,Nikkatsu-the most important of the pinku eiga studios-launched a series of pink films which were progressively more extreme in their level of sexual violence."Assault!Jack the Ripper" is certainly one of the nastiest pink films I have ever came across.It tells the story of a young waitress and a cook,who after incidentally killing a young woman on a street ends up sadistically raping and murdering women via stabbing them in the crotch.The scenes of rape and sexual violence are truly unsettling,but the film is well-made and acted.Yasuharu Hasebe directed a series of very extreme Nikkatsu pink movies including brutal "Rape!" and horrendously offensive "Rape!13th Hour".In 1979 came Koyu Ohara's "Zoom Up:Rape Site",notorious for a scene in which a rapist shoves a light bulb inside a woman's vagina,then stomps on her stomach until it breaks."Assault!Jack the Ripper" is not easy to find,but for fans of misogynistic Japanese exploitation this sleazy sickie is a must-see.10 out of 10.

A disgruntled waitress and a shy male pastry chef "accidentally" become serial killers when, while driving home one night, they pick up a crazed hitchhiker (kind of a female version of the guy in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") who strips out of her clothes, smears cake batter all over her body, and cuts herself with a razor blade. After they accidentally kill this nut-job, they have frenzied sex for the first time and realize that murder is a real turn on. . .

This movie is kind of a horror/black comedy like Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers". But it doesn't have the smug hypocritical "social commentary" of that film (i.e. preaching against violence in the media at the same time you're wallowing in it). It's also a Japanese "pink film" so it has a lot of gratuitous sex and nudity. It's obviously very politically incorrect, so people who are always getting offended by movies (isn't there enough stuff to get offended about in real life?) should probably avoid it. The truth is though where American movies tend to take murder with a grain of salt (and sometimes even make it entertaining), Japanese films do the same with murder AND rape. Thanks to years of misguided feminism, Americans tend to take the latter very seriously, but nobody is REALLY being raped in these movies anymore than they're really being murdered. (Wouldn't all the political energy be better spent by, I don't know, trying to enforce the prosecution of REAL-LIFE rape as an international war crime or something?).

For what it's worth, this movie is not as "rape-happy" as a lot of Japanese exploitation flicks. The far more disturbing thing is that this couple is sexually turned on by blood and violence. It is also, however, a very well made by a respected Japanese director. The lead actress is not very attractive in the conventional sense (although she is a lot more impressive with her clothes off), but this actually works well with her "outsider" character. The male lead is also very good, transforming believably from a shy male virgin to a raving psycho. This movie obviously isn't for everyone, but if you're the right kind of viewer and in the right frame of mind, you might very well enjoy it.

Assault! Jack the Ripper (1976)

** (out of 4)

Original Title: Bôkô Kirisaki Jakku

Perversely sexual and violent, this Japanese film has a reputation as being one of the stronger "pinku" movies out there. The story centers on a cook and a waitress who one night accidentally run over a crazed hitchhiker. The two find themselves being turned on by death and blood so they keep killing women and borrow the trademark of Jack the Ripper by cutting them from their private areas on up. I just recently became aware of these pinku Japanese movies so I' doing research on which ones to start with and this here seemed to have pretty good reviews but in the end I was somewhat let down. The one part of its reputation that it lives up to is the rather bizarre sexual nature of the film. There are quite a few sex scenes here, which come off very perverted and sleazy even though nothing hardcore, or really softcore for that matter, happens. The lead actress, who's name I can't find anywhere, has a rather amazing body so seeing her strip off certainly wasn't a negative thing. Her round face also comes in quite handy because she looks so innocent yet is as deadly as they come. Her performance is quite good as is her co-star but yet again I couldn't find his name among various reviews I read. I think the most disappointing aspect is that the film really isn't all that violent. Yes, the aftermath of a woman being sliced up and down is pretty grim but very little of it is actually shown. Usually we see a minor stab wound and then the rest happens off camera and then we go back for the aftermath. I've read reviews saying the film was ultra violent and downright raw and nasty but I didn't find that to be the case. The biggest problem however is that the film runs 71-minutes and really doesn't have enough of a story to fill that short time. The movie starts to feel rather long because we keep going through the same thing of a murder, sex, a murder, more sex and so on.