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Savage Streets (United States, 1984) Infamous American exploitation movie from the mid-80's featuring a very young looking Linnea Quigley (she was 26 at the time) as a deaf-mute younger sister to a too-old-to-be-in-high-school Linda Blair (she was 25 at the time). A cartoonish looking gang of four expelled teens brutally rape the younger sister and leave her for dead, while Linda Blair tries to figure out who it is. Holding her back is a regular string of problems at school (fights in the girls shower!) where she's reprimanded by the slimy but tough Principal played by John Vernon (Dean Wormer from Animal House). Eventually she extracts her revenge on the gang, though it's not nearly as violent or creative as everything leading up to it. The hair, the music, the clothes, the bad acting, and even a Linda Blair nude scene highlight this American Exploitation classic that's still entertaining and watchable.

Angel Guts - High School Co-ed (Japan, 1978) dir: Chûsei Sone

Kawashima and his two biker friends spend their time riding around and raping unsuspecting young girls. Much younger than them. His sister, Megu is coming of age, and men are starting to notice her. Ironically being overprotective he starts to feel conflicted. One day while out with his sister he saves a girl from his friend trying to rape her, which ends up leading to even more conflicted feelings. Has he fallen in love? What makes her different from the other rape victims he shares with his friend? Does he see his sister in this girl? Is he attracted to his sister? Is he distancing himself from his gang?

Director Chûsei Sone shoots this like the viewer is there, hanging out and observing, privy to the private conversations and shocking behavior. That makes it all that more realistic and difficult to look away from.

It's part of a series obviously meant to titillate and yet it goes to great lengths to show us the ugliness and the pain of the victim. Machiko Ohtani as Nami, the girl who the gang fights over, gives a pretty brave performance considering especially what she has to go through in here (and Megu Kawashima as well, as the sister). This is still an exploitation film, but it's been made as a well-crafted movie, with something more to show you than just bikers punks raping school girls. That's just an ugly world that happens to exist - we're thrust inside of it when it suddenly tries to gain a conscience.

The ending is unsatisfying, as a way to finish a story. It was summed up better when, late in the movie, Kawashima asks one of the victims "Who did this to you?" and she answers, "It doesn't matter who does it" as if in the end it's just a foregone conclusion in the world they live in.

The Execution Game (Japan, 1979) directed by Tôru Murakawa Cool but quirky Hitman Narumi (Yûsaku Matsuda) is back in the final part of the trilogy, much more weary and tired of it all, but drawn back in anyway. He's kidnapped and given an assignment, untrusting and unsure of what it's all about, having a history of double crosses. He still has a knack for pissing off anyone who tries to get close to him, especially women, but this time he's fallen in love with a nightclub singer. That doesn't usually end well in a hard boiled movie, and he finds out she was ALSO kidnapped by these guys, forcing him to do this job. Director Tôru Murakawa's trilogy of these films may follow a specific formula in their presentation, but this is a character who has grown throughout that trilogy, no longer falling asleep at a strippers stage or carelessly surrounding himself with party girls that he can't pay the bill for... life has worn him down... the booze, the women, the killing...