Meneko

I had never heard about this 1983 Japanese crime thriller titled "Meneko" (aka "She Cats"), from director Shingo Yamashiro, prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2025. And with it being an Asian movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to check it out, given my love of the Asian cinema.

The movie was sleazed unnecessarily down by an excess amount of pointless nudity and lovemaking scenes, which didn't really help further the narrative in any way. This was an exploitation movie, pure and simple, and not a crime thriller like the movie's cover and IMDb depicts. So I found the movie to be quite a swing and a miss, as I was expecting a crime thriller and not sleazy nudity.

The storyline in the movie, whenever it can be seen in between the nudity and lewd scenes, was okay. But I have to say that it was ruined by the pointless and constant lewd scenes. So I can't claim that writers Chiho Katsura, Mieko Kawasaki and Makoto Naitô put together anything extraordinary here.

Despite of having seen quite a number of Japanese movies, then I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. The acting performances, when seen in between the nudity and lewd scenes, was okay.

"Meneko" failed to entertain me, and I tossed the towel in the ring 28 minutes into the 86 minute runtime. By then I was just bored senseless and had more than my share of pointless nudity. And this is definitely not a movie that I will return to watch a second time.

My rating of "Meneko" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

AKA She Cat.

AKA Female Cats.

'She Cat' is a Japanese soft-core porn thriller about innocent female doctor Mineko. A botched assassination puts her in brutal killers' sights and when Mineko starts dating a male co-worker, Sachiko, an aggressive lesbian from Mineko's past, comes out enraged with jealousy, and begins tormenting Mineko and her boyfriend. Mineko seeks revenge.

Yamashiro's direction is great and is composed of many astonishingly good-looking sequences, punctuated by some creatively stylish Argento-esque camerawork. A lesbian shower sequence between Mineko and Sachiko is singled out for praise. The scene is shot from the shower faucet's point of view, through a spray of water.

If you are into female exploitation films, 'She Cat' delivers! It got beautiful women creatively shot in frequent sex-scenes and a plot that actually works.

20 minutes into this movie and the dialog, plus the misogynist stupidity is overwhelming. The bone headed cops are beyond stupid with their asinine assumptions and homophobic rhetoric.

And the boyfriend over acting was bizarre from the very start at the women's clinic. But let's not leave the cringe worthy dialog at the funeral. And like I stated, this is only 20 minutes into this. And there is always the faked forced BS male inserting himself into an equally unrealistic relationship with the female protagonist.

Talk about disjointed all over the place nonsense, just another weak AF softcore porn, and to be honest, I've seen better dialog and plots in XXX movies.

So predictable, and so lame, which brings to mind as to how this got a rating over 2, since the only redeeming factor would be the cinematography.

This is a classic one and done.