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Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2: She-Cat Gambler reviewed by Tim Irwin

Along with the first Wandering Ginza Butterfly movie, Synapse Films has released its sequel. Once again the transfer is clean and neat, and the subtitles are once again very well done. And once again, the sequel is basically the same movie as the first time around, but with Sonny Chiba added to the mix and gambling taking the place of hustling pool.

Nami (played again by Meiko Kaji), is once again wandering around Tokyo and the surrounding areas. She's a professional gambler, following in the footsteps of her wrongly murdered father. She's still a tough cookie, and still quite beautiful. Her first act is to save a girl sold into prostitution. She rescues her and takes her back to Tokyo to work as a hostess (without the sex) at a club run by an old friend of Nami's. She also runs into a no-good gambler thug and helps him out, putting him forever in her debt. Then she runs into Sonny Chiba, this time playing a character named Ryuji (like the first movie, but not the same character). He runs the only other prostitution ring outside of the Aoshida Company, which is the evil corporation of Yakuza this time around. But he's a nice guy and very kind to his girls.

In any case, things go okay until Aoshida starts muscling in on the club and Ryuji's racket. It doesn't help matters that he might have had something to do with Nami's father's death. Eventually everything ends up in another orgy of violence and destruction.

Up until that point, though, the film is again basically a Yakuza drama. This time, though, there's more comedy thrown in, even some slapstick stuff with Chiba and the no-good gambler. There's even a little more nudity, though most of it is still in pinups on the walls. The violence, however brief it may be, is a fair bit more bloody and spurty than the previous entry.

I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a sequel or a prequel, since some events line up in both films, such as Nami's father being dead. In the end I decided it was more like the Yakuza Deka films, also starring Chiba, where from the first to the second we basically get the same characters in slightly different situations. It's almost like alternate universes where the same people exist yet get into different trouble.

No matter, I still quite enjoyed the film. It's nice having the thirty plus years since its release to appreciate the two almost as companion pieces. Chiba adds quite a bit this time around, as his presence always does. The directing has a few more stylish flourishes that Kazuhiko Yamaguchi must have learned between the films. Kaji is once again wonderful as the same character she almost always plays. She's tough and independent, a wanderer in the rough streets of Tokyo. She's pretty but able to handle herself, not taking any crap from anyone. Plus, at the end of the film it's all slicey-dicey goodness.

This film is perhaps a little better than the first one, but as a sequel it doesn't have quite the same effect. Since both films are 86 minutes long it's no problem watching them together; a double dose of Kaji never hurt anyone. Well worth watching.

Wandering Ginza Butterfly Reviewed by Tim Irwin This is the first time this film has been released on DVD and I am quite excited. It's one of the many movies that the Toei Company made in the early 1970's about the Yakuza and various gangster activities in Tokyo. It features Meiko Kaji, the star of numerous franchises during the 1970's. She was not only Lady Snowblood before Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino came along, she was also in Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter and other films from that franchise, and she was Prisoner 701 in the Joshuu series. Not to mention the various Kinji Fukasaku films she starred in.

And now the folks at Synapse Films recently put together this transfer and presented us with another one of Meiko's films. Be careful going into it, though, because if you're expecting something like Yakuza Deka (with Sonny Chiba, who starred in Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2 with Meiko) you might be disappointed. This is a Yakuza film, to be sure, but it's more of a drama than an action or gangster movie.

Meiko is Nami and is again in prison. Same name, same story as the Joshuu films, but no matter. This time she's just been released after three years hard time. She heads back to Tokyo to meet up with her uncle, who owns a billiard hall and taught her how to hustle pool. She gets involved with a local semi-gangster, Ryuji, who hooks the various sex clubs up with hostesses. Since she's rather attractive (and tough) she soon becomes one of the best hostesses around: pretty enough to attract clientèle and mean enough to make sure they pay.

But of course the Owada clan is muscling in on the Ginza neighborhood, and soon the club's owner finds she is being bullied into selling the club to Owada or forfeiting it outright. This is when Nami gets a chance to pay back the kindness shown to her by Ryuji and the club's Madam.

There is quite a bit going on in the story, including several side plots having to do with Nami's past and how she ended up in prison. The first 75 minutes of the film are almost solely concerned with these flashbacks and her current hostessing. This is not a bad thing, but if you're expecting geysers of blood at every turn you might become slightly bored.

Then, in the final ten minutes, the film erupts in an orgy of violence. It's almost like the recent films of Takeshi Kitano, where everything is calm and peaceful before exploding in brief and brutal violence. The main difference is that here the small amount of violence follows the same style as Lady Snowblood, with the slashing and stabbing. One might also expect a fair amount of sex and nudity, much like Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion. However, almost all the nudity is discreet and only present in pinup posters on a wall.

From a production standpoint, Wandering Ginza Butterfly is very similar to other Japanese gangster films from the same time period. There are moments of stylish directing, such as the camera that searches the background until it finds the one person it wants to portray. Other than that everything merely exists to push the story along. Kaji has the physical presence and beauty to convincingly play Nami, and the other actors also turn in fine performances.

From a DVD standpoint the transfer is very well done. The Japanese mono soundtrack is present with optional English subtitles, and the picture is very clear and crisp, especially for an older foreign film.

This is definitely worth catching, especially for those hardcore fans of Meiko Kaji. Keep in mind, however, that it's not one of your standard pinky violence flicks; here the blood and nudity is kept fairly well under wraps. Regardless, it's short, sweet and climaxes with a payoff worthy of any fan of the genre.

Not that great. Sure, only five other people have voted for it at the time of my writing. Maybe they were all in it. Anyway, it gets lost after a fairly strong first portion, then deteriorates, falling away from its main themes, and then goes nowhere for far too long. Mediocre. It starts out focusing on the patients themselves, then goes on to talking about what they are doing. Doesn't exactly give them all equal time, and doesn't tell us enough background. We have little idea of what plagued some of them, which would have enabled us to sympathize more with them. Uneven, even for a documentary. Only worth watching for extra credit in a psyche class.

6 out of 10.