SCORPION'S REVENGE (1997; AKA Sasori In USA) Japanese interior designer (Yohko Saitoh), wrongly sent to an American cooler for the murder of her husband via exploding car, gets a flip through the back catalogue of women-in-prison movie indignities: delousings, showers, beatings, cafeteria catfighting, yard catfighting, a warden who quotes scripture while he brutalizes and rapes the fishies, raging American bull dykes, and an absolutely inhumane LACK OF PANTS! But Scorpion's revenge ain't against the system, baby, even though she does manage to fuck it up a bit on her way out; it's with the people who killed her man and sent her away, and when she breaks out with another fish in tow, a blind girl looking for her own justice against the sleazeballs who offed her Latino guitar-picker boyfriend, and discovers in a staggering revelation that her husband faked his own death in order to kill a bunch of shyster lawyers who were suing his company (not a spoiler!), she realizes his clock must be punched, permanently. This probably should've been more tongue-in-cheek, but perhaps director Daisuke Gotoh wasn't aware just how big a joke the genre has become to American B-movie filmmakers and fans. As such, however, he does include everything one has come to expect from a babes-behind-bars epic; problem is its all crammed into the first 40 minutes, the remainder being dedicated to a rather laborious trek across the desert and the decidedly predictable and anti-climatic round of score settling with The Man.
Worth it if you can find it cheap, and compared to fellow Asia Extreme labelmate BEAUTIFUL PREY, a fair bit more fun. I give it a 7.
Worth it if you can find it cheap, and compared to fellow Asia Extreme labelmate BEAUTIFUL PREY, a fair bit more fun. I give it a 7.