Joshû ori

Female Prisoner: Cage (1983)

*** (out of 4)

aka Joshu ori

I had never heard of this film until a few weeks ago when Mondo Macabro released it to DVD. Many of the review I read called it the most brutal and bizarre women in prison film ever made. Having seen many myself, I had to check this one out to just see if it was really that wild and I must report that it is. The film tells the story of young prisoner (Mina Asami) who escaped but is eventually captured and brought back. The evil warden decides to make her a pet project and tries to break her down with torture, gang rape and by turning her friends against her. If you're easily offended then it's best you stay away from this film but I'd also recommend not reading anything else that I write here because it's impossible to write about this movie without getting to the more disgusting aspects. I've seen some wild WIP films from across the world and thought I had seen everything in various Jess Franco projects but this film might be the top-dog in terms of perverts. The movie features all types of bodily fluids from blood to urine to sperm. A lot of times all three are used together in one disgusting form after the next. The most outrageous scene of many happens when the women jump over a fence after being turned on by some construction workers who they eventually rape after being urinated on. Women are raping women, men raping women and even a priest gets in on the fun by fooling around with a big-chested guard. There's really not that much of a story here because the bottom line is that the movie wants to shock you for its 68-minutes and it certainly does that. Not only do we get all the masturbating, rapes and giggling schoolgirls talking about the pleasures of being raped by their cousins but we also get S&M and foot sucking. Even though this film is cheap exploitation it does features some really beautiful cinematography, which is something you don't normally see in a movie like this. Apparently director Konuma was very popular dipping into this rather wild genre so I look forward to checking out more of his work.

Normally you can't go wrong with a DVD release from Mondo Macabre, but I don't what to make of THIS. It's technically a "pink" film, but it's not one that I've ever seen reviewed by any of the well-known genre critics like Jaspar Sharp or Thomas Weissner. It's basically a WIP (women in prison) film, but it's very different from anything else in the genre. Instead of the standard story of an innocent "new fish" thrown into a prison, the story starts en media res of a power struggle between a matronly but brutal warden and a rebellious young prisoner who keeps trying to escape. The young prisoner is actually guilty for a change, however, and although she is frequently and horribly brutalized, she is incredibly stoic and tough, much like the character Meiko Kaji played in the 1970's "Female Prisoner Scorpion" series (the only film this somewhat resembles).

The word "gratuitous" gets thrown around a lot, but this movie is really the essence of gratuitous. There is so much gratuitous sex and gratuitous rape and gratuitous bondage and torture scenes that movie almost ceases to even be a narrative film (the ending is especially confounding). Unlike with a hardcore porno flick, however, you don't get the sense that it was simply because the people involved didn't have the talent to make a narrative film. It's more like they intentionally took the most exploitative and gratuitous material imaginable and took it several steps beyond into the realm of the avante-garde.

There are some typical Japanese touches. They "optically fog" any hint of pubic hair, for instance, but have no problem splashing around every kind of bodily fluid imaginable. And in unique Japanese fashion, the movie manages to be jaw-droppingly offensive, but at the same time, so ridiculously silly that it's hard to take seriously. In one scene, for instance, a mob of VERY horny female prisoners leap over a fence and attack some male construction workers. One of the workers responds by urinating right in the faces of several of the women, who act like they're being blessed with holy water. Of course, this is incredibly offensive and almost unimaginable in any Western film (outside of an extreme fetish porn flick), but it's also patently ridiculous that ANY woman in ANY country separated from men for a few years would ever possibly act this way.

Obviously, this movie isn't for everybody (and I don't know that I want to be around the kind of people it IS for), but it's certainly different.

A female prisoner Masayo(Mina Asami)is captured by wardens after an unsuccessful escape attempt.The evil prison guard begins to torture Masayo to break her spirit.Very nasty and vicious Japanese Women-in-Prison flick with plenty of rape and sexual violence on display.Tons of nudity,a bit of nasty torture and bondage plus abundant sweat,blood,semen and urine.Add also golden showers and you have a winner.Masaru Konuma's "Female Prisoner:Caged!" truly is one of the most savage and brutal WiP flicks ever made.It's even more vicious than several Jess Franco's WiP movies.I can only compare it to "Female Market" when it comes to sheer nastiness.8 horny construction workers out of 10.