Nora-neko rokku: Bôsô shûdan '71

'Beat 71' is the last entry of the Stray Cat Rock series, comprising of five movies in total. While the first, third and fourth were directed by Hasebe in a dark and gritty city movie style, the second and fifth were directed by Fujita in a brighter countryside style, less seriously, but I actually prefer these two over the other parts of the series, they are simply more fun.

'Beat 71' tells us about Furiko (Meiko Kaji) and her boyfriend Ryumei (Takeo Chii), who is the son of a mayor. The politician thinks his son should continue his business career instead of hanging around with hippies. He has the two abducted and throws Furiko in a cell so she will no longer distract Ryumei from work. Their hippie friends however make a camp in front of the mayor's house, let a rock band play there and announce loudly they will stay until they get Furiko back. The mayor lets them drive out of town by the police, so they hide in a western town. Now all depends on Ryumei...

Very entertaining flick with a lot of bizarre western movie influences, for example when a guy starts his motor-bike, you don't hear an engine, only the hooves of a horse. Meiko Kaji of 'Lady Snowblood' fame unfortunately has a rather simple role that does not allow her a memorable performance. But the team effort is convincing.

Toshiya Fujita returns to the director's seat for Beat '71, the fifth and final film in the Stray Cat Rock series. Like his earlier entry, Wild Jumbo, it's a more light-hearted affair than any of Yasuharu Hasebe's efforts, and as such lacks the 'cool' factor that I look for in my Japanese '70s cinema. Also, the series' star, Meiko Kaji, plays second fiddle to a group of free-spirited hippies, her character spending much of the film locked in a cell by the film's bad guy. It's a disappointing way to end a series that, as a whole, really isn't as worthy of cult-dom as Kaji's Female Prisoner Scorpion films or her Lady Snowblood movies.

Kaji plays hippy Furiko, whose romantic liason with fellow drop-out Ryumei is interrupted by a gang of thugs, who have been ordered by Ryumei's businessman father Yoshitarô Araki (Yoshio Inaba) to bring his son home. A fight breaks out, during which Ryumei kills one of Akari's hired heavies; Ryumei is then bundled into a car by two of Akari's henchmen, with Furiko framed for the murder.

Two months later, Furiko escapes from a women's remand centre, and goes in search of Ryumei. Unfortunately, Ryumei's father has reconditioned his son using brutal beatings, and he is no longer interested in her (it would take more than a few wallops with a bamboo stick to put me off Kaji). Realising that Furiko could be problematic to his political career, Mr. Araki has her abducted and plans to get rid of her before she can tell the truth about his son. Of course, Furiko's hippy friends aren't about to let that happen, and the mounting tensions ultimately results in a typical Stray Cat Rock downbeat ending, set at a disused mine called Gold Town.

If you enjoyed Wild Jumbo's humorous approach, then there's a good chance you'll like this one as well, but if Hasebe's style is more your bag, then Beat '71 might seem a little tepid in comparison. The action is definitely a little too playful for my liking, the frivolous mood typified by a 'WTF?' scene in which one of the drop-outs dies of pleasure while using a pneumatic drill, and the appearance of a band called The Mops, who turn up outside Araki's house to perform a psychedelic rock number, before driving off on their truck. 'Who were they?' asks one of the hippies. 'No idea', another answers. Me neither!

4.5/10, rounded down to 4 for that annoying little kid. Gack!

The fifth and final Stray Cat Rock film finds Toshiya Fujita (who also directed the second installment, Wild Jumbo, but is most famous for making the Lady Snowblood movies) behind the camera. Like Wild Jumbo, Beat '71 isn't about girl gangs. No, here Meiko Kaji and Tatsuya Fuji are members of a hippie commune living in Tokyo. Kaji isn't even in this one all that much, though she's a central character. She spends much of the movie imprisoned with the other hippies attempting to save her. Kaji's boyfriend has been kidnapped by his politician father, who wants to save him from hippiedom, and frames Kaji for murder. She escapes and goes after the boyfriend, but is then captured and imprisoned in the politician's mansion. Eiji Go once again plays the villain, the leader of a gang hired by the politician to keep the hippies away. This is probably my third favorite of the series. Lots of fun stuff here, lots of great music. There is an annoying little kid, an adopted son of one of the hippies, but he isn't too bad, even though he probably has more screen time than Meiko Kaji.

All good things must come to an end, including the Stray Cat Rock series with five entries in total in the franchise. After four movies all released in 1970 (three of them directed by Yasuharu Hasebe), the final part was helmed by Toshiya Fujita who had also made the second film Wild Jumbo. By this time the differences between Hasebe and Fujita's directing styles have become clearer than before but in the end I think both did a good job with the series.

Hasebe's three Nora-neko films all dealt with gang rivalries in big cities while Fujita's first effort was a leisurely caper story largely set on a sandy beach. Likewise, Crazy Rider '71 (a.k.a. Wild Measures '71 a.k.a. Beat '71) takes place outside busy urban environments and comes across as much lighter in tone than its immediate predecessors. The plot gets started when Furiko and Ryumei (Meiko Kaji and Takeo Chii), two members of a park-dwelling hippie gang from Shinjuku, are ambushed by a biker gang. Ryumei stabs one of the thugs to death but is forcibly taken away by his shady politician father (Yoshio Inaba), leaving Furiko to take the blame for the crime. She cannot forget him, escapes from prison in order to find him again and is soon joined by her gang in the small town of Kurumi. However, Ryumei's powerful father has no intentions of letting the bohemian hippies influence his son ever again.

Even though there are many tragic plot twists, most of the time the mood is significantly more comedic than before. The general bumbling of the hippies and their young adopted son Mabo, idyllic scenes of tandem cycling, roaming in a Wild West theme park, a whinnying sound effect on a motorcycle and other details all create a contrast to the dramatic finale that is probably the most spectacular and action-packed in the whole series. Additionally, the music is a lot softer than before but still almost as groovy and funny as always, especially the totally random song performance of the real-life psychedelic rock group The Mops in the middle of everything. There is also some drug use and a light naughty scene, all in comedic contexts unlike similar themes in Hasebe's films.

Even though I like the movie overall, it can be noticed that the series was clearly running out of steam by this point. The star of the franchise Meiko Kaji is absent for a large part of the runtime and her character's relationship with Ryumei (a.k.a. Takaaki) is not paid much attention by the writing, so the emotional background for the big showdown at the end remains vague. Ruymei's new girlfriend Ayako also comes across as a somewhat unnecessary and underused character, not to mention how it is difficult to grasp what the writers were thinking when killing off a certain character completely out of the blue at one point. Furthermore, the trademark camera trickery is heavily downplayed this time, reducing the style to just some quick zooms and occasional hand-held shaking. Still, the actors playing the hippies are pretty funny throughout; I don't know their names but I think at least Tatsuya Fuji is among them, as expected in this franchise.

When all is said and done, I think Crazy Rider '71 is a very watchable youth gang flick, flawed or not. Those who enjoyed Fujita's Wild Jumbo should definitely give this one a go since the similarities are obvious from early on, but with some reservations I would recommend Fujita's movies to Hasebe's fans too. The very last shots leave the film's ultimate "message" open for interpretation – hopeful or not? Watch the movie, decide for yourself and take a look at the other parts as well.

This film begins with a young couple frolicking at a park in Shinjuku when five motorcyclists ride up and begin to attack the man. Although "Ryumei" (Takeo Chii) puts up a struggle he soon becomes worn out and its then that he produces a knife and kills one of them. Its then that another man comes upon the scene and subdues him. For her part, "Furiko" (Meiko Kaji) tries to help but is knocked unconscious while Ryumei is carried off. Not long afterward, she finds herself lying beside the dead man with a knife in her hand. The scene then shifts to two months later with Furiko and her sister "Aya" (Yuka Kumari) scaling a fence and successfully breaking out of prison. Determined to find Ryumei, Furiko sends Aya to a location where some hippies have congregated to ask for assistance while she heads out to a place he might have been taken. What she doesn't realize is that Ryumei is no longer the same person she once knew and that his influential father "Yoshitaro Araki" (Yoshio Inaba) intends to ensure that Furiko is never allowed to implicate his son for the murder of the man in the park. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film wasn't nearly as good as the other movies that preceded it due in large part to the meandering plot and the rather unsatisfactory ending. Likewise, I was also disappointed with the lack of quality time given to Meiko Kaii who has justifiably been the main character throughout the series. At least, up until now. Be that as it may, as the last film of the series, I don't consider this movie to be on the same level as its predecessors and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.