We deal in human slaughter. But when the killing business is slow we also hire out to open Champagne bottles at parties.
We ran across this menacing promo image online showing the titular quintet of delinquent girl bosses from Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess, originally titled Zubekô banchô: zange no neuchi mo nai, and which premiered in Japan today in 1971. Reiko Oshida is front and center, flanked by Yukie Kagawa, Mieko Tsudoi, Masumi Tachibana, and Yumiko Katayama. We’ve shared plenty of promo art from the film, and discussed what it’s about. You can see all that by clicking its keywords below. And if you get the urge to be trendy and open a Champagne bottle with a sword, try to do better than these people.
There's hell to pay and the only currency she takes is cold hard ass.
Above is a rare bo-eikibari style promo for Sukeban burûsu: Mesubachi no gyakushû, known in English as as Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee Strikes Again, or sometimes Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee’s Counterattack. It premiered in Japan today in 1971. You can see the standard promo at the top of this group post, and you can see the tateken promo here. Basically, Reiko Ike, Miki Sugimoto, Yayoi Watanabe, et al are members of a gang of hot young thieves who extort hapless middle-aged squares by luring them, drugging them, and robbing them. The movie has a little of everything—and lot of Ike, one of the towering figures of Japanese b-movies.
We find it interesting that Sugimoto didn’t make it onto the poster (nor the other promos made for the film) while Yayoi Watanabe (prone and restrained) did. Rest assured, Miki is in the film. She gets as much screen time as anyone except Ike, especially in the first forty-five minutes. Mysterious are the minds of pinku poster designers. This isn’t the first time they’ve thrown us a curve by leaving someone important off a promo. Anyway, this movie is well worth a watch for fans of pinky violence. We already showed you a promo image of Reiko Ike yesterday, but what the heck—let’s bring her back, below. And Sugimoto too. We can’t have one without the other.
The Zu animals break loose and Tokyo is never the same.
Above is a promo poster for Toei Company’s pinky violence hit Zubekô banchô: yume wa yoru hiraku, aka Tokyo Bad Girls, aka Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams, which premiered in Japan today in 1970. We already talked about the movie years back and showed you the tateken sized promo poster. Because we had this second piece of art, today we decided to be completist. Reiko Oshida and Keiko Fuji are still the main graphic elements, but some of the other bits have been rearranged. You can see the first piece, and also read about the movie, at this link.
Oshida and Co. may have been to reform school but once a boss always a boss.
First film in what would become the successful Zubekô banchô series, Zubekô banchô: yume wa yoru hiraku, aka Delinquent Girl Boss: Blossoming Night Dreams, aka Tokyo Bad Girls stars Reiko Oshida as a parolee from a reform school who takes a job in a Shinjuku hotspot called Bar Murasaki, but finds walking the straight and narrow a difficult ambition to fulfill. As usual in these pinku films set in and around nightclubs, a criminal syndicate wants to take over, which means she’s soon stuck between a resistant owner and an insistent Yakuza. Some girls she knows from reform school have also found spots at the club, and in addition to Yakuza problems, Oshida finds herself drawn into the issues of her friends.
But it’s good they’re around, these girl delinquents, because when the climactic brawl with the villains happens, Oshida will need loyal friends at her side. On the whole Blossoming Night Dreams is tamer than later entires in the Delinquent Girl Boss series, but considering the sexual violence that began to appear, most would consider that a good thing. Of course, it’s always important to remember that these films are counterculture in character, replacing the subservient women of previous eras with badass riot girls who always took violent revenge upon men who wronged them. The formula was both exploitative and pro feminist, with the sexploitation putting rear ends in the seats, whereupon the progressive message was hammered home.
Anyway, moving on to the poster, you may notice that, by a quirk of design, Oshida, star of the film, does not appear to be star of the promo art. The topmost position is given to Keiko Fuji. But a closer look reveals that Oshida gets a full body shot in the center foreground of the art, while Fuji is layered behind. It’s still unusual that Fuji is placed where she is, though. While she plays Bar Murasaki‘s headlining performer, she has far less screen time most of the other castmembers. But she’s good in her role, Oshida’s excellent, Masumi Tachibana, Yukie Kagawa, and the rest of the troupe are having fun, and everyone deserves credit for making the movie well worth a screening. Zubekô banchô: yume wa yoru hirakuopened today in 1970.
Kaidan hebi-onna is known in English as Snake Woman’s Curse, or sometimes Ghost Story of the Snake Woman, and it stars Sachiko Kuwabara, who is also known as Yukiko Kuwabara, and whose last name is read informally as Kuwahara. These various designations have caused some confusion online, but whether Sachiko or Yukiko, or Kuwabara or Kuwahara, they’re all the same woman. She doesn’t star on the poster, though—that honor has been reserved for Yukie Kagawa, who’s there because, well, we’ll get to that.
The plot here involves a cruel landlord in feudal Japan who overworks a sharecropper couple, bringing about their untimely deaths by illness, causing them to linger as vengeful spirits who regularly pop up and scare the shit out of everyone. The couple’s bereft daughter also soon dies, but by her own hand. The landlord and his son begin seeing spirits and snakes everywhere, and even begin to think those close to them are becoming snakes. Kagawa undergoes such a transformation, though only imagined by the villains, and that’s why she’s on the poster despite her secondary role in the film.
Kaidan hebi-onna is well shot and acted, but the blood efx are amateur hour and the snake sequences mainly consist of the poor creatures being thrown into shots from off-camera. Based on the highly polished look of the film, we’d have thought there was enough budget to get this stuff right, but what do we know? Maybe all the money went into the sets and costumes. Not frightening, but still an atmospheric evocation of classic revenant themes, Kaidan hebi-onna opened in Japan today in 1968. You can see an alternate poster for the film here, and as a double bonus, below are two promo photos of Kuwahara, or Kuwabara. Talk about cold blooded—she must be freezing inside and out.
Reiko Ike chops off her enemies’ heads so they can be topless too.
Sometimes you just have to have a little Reiko Ike, so we brought her back today on a poster from her 1971 sword opera Sukeban burûsu: Mesubachi no gyakushû, aka Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee Strikes Again, aka Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee’s Counterattack. In this first installment of the Girl Boss series, Reiko plays the leader of the Athens girl gang, who use thier bodies to engage in blackmail for profit. She breaks in a fresh young gang member, finds heself in a rivalry with a newly arrived veteran criminal played by Yukie Kagawa. Disobedient Kagawa instigates a blackmail plot—without Reiko’s permission, uh oh—that has the potential to rock Japanese society.
There’s even more going on here plotwise, but the main thing is that, as usual, Reiko finally decides to make a big score and a lot of violence results. While this isn’t the strongest of director Norifumi Suzuki’s films, it’s pretty entertaining. It’s got the requisite portions of sex, violence, and audacious shock. Oh, and we should mention it has a famous group sex-on-motorcycles scene you should probably see. For fans of the genre, that’s probably more than enough by itself. But in case it isn’t, Ike’s gang includes Miki Sugimoto, Yayoi Watanabe (both below), and other hotties. Sukeban Blues: Mesubachi no Gyakusyû premiered in Japan today in 1971.
In San Diego, thirty-nine members of a cult called Heaven’s Gate are found dead after committing suicide in the belief that a UFO hidden in tail of the Hale-Bopp comet was a signal that it was time to leave Earth for a higher plane of existence. The cult members killed themselves by ingesting pudding and applesauce laced with poison.
1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs
On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem’s domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem’s behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance.
1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.
1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping
Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.
2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies
American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.
