Above are two posters for Norifumi Suzuki’s pinky violence flick Kyôfu joshikôkô: Onna bôryoku kyôshitsu, aka Terrifying Girls High School: Women’s Violent Classroom, with Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto. This was first in a four film series, followed by Lynch Law Classroom, Delinquent Convulsion Group, and Animal Courage. Sugimoto is the ringleader of a girl gang at Seiko High School, beating up other students, bullying them for money, bombarding a teacher with condoms and panties, leaving a dead cat hanging in class, even engaging in a little blackmail. Why is Miki such a problem? A couple of years earlier she was raped, and now she has changed from, in her words, “the raped to the one who rapes.” Do you have any doubt at all that a man wrote that?
So okay, Miki, driven by past trauma, runs the school like a despot queen, but her reign of terror hits a snag when another very tough girl is transferred there. That would be none other than Reiko Ike, who joins forces with Miki’s main rival. It’s pure pinky violence action from that point on, as faces are slapped, hair is pulled, dresses are ripped, and boobs are burned with cigarettes. They play rough, these high schoolers. Meanwhile a new teacher known as a disciplinarian comes to Seiko High and tries to be understanding with these she-devils, but when pushed past his breaking point is soon body slamming them. Never one to back down, Miki arranges for the teacher’s wife to be gang raped. She wants to retain control of her high school fiefdom and there’s no limit to what she’ll do. But Reiko? She has a totally different agenda.
Both Sugimoto and Ike were nineteen when they made this film, and both look perfect for their roles—young but a bit hardened. Since pinku movies involve a lot of steely glares, they depend greatly upon the actresses’ ability to impart meaning with facial expressions. Sugimoto and Ike are both good at that. These are also physical movies, with gang fights that resemble choreographed group dances. Ike was particularly adept at this and would later film one of the famed fight scenes in film history in 1973’s Sex and Fury, a nude sword battle against a half dozen men who surprise her in the bathtub. She and Sugimoto rode their many abilities to greater stardom throughout the mid-1970s. Working here together, you can really see their talent. Kyôfu joshikôkô: Onna bôryoku kyôshitsu premiered in Japan today in 1972.
