Criminal Woman: Killing Melody (1973)

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Snake Woman's Curse (1968)

From the director of Jigoku comes a perverse classic of Japanese horror!

Snake Woman's Curse

I know that many visitors to this site (not that there are that many visitors) like the campy or so-bad-they're-good movies that I write about here.  Obviously I like those movies too, but Nobuo Nakagawa's Snake Woman's Curse or Kaidan hebi-onna is not one of those films.  It's not cheesy in any way.  It's just a really good movie.  It's a tale of supernatural horror, a Japanese ghost story about karmic retribution and it features one of my favorite ladies from the pinky violence films, Yukie Kagawa.

During the modernization of Japan during the Meiji Restoration, a traditional farmer is indebted to a wealthy, self-centered (which is not a good thing in a Buddhist inspired ghost story) landowner.  Unable to pay off his debt, the old farmer works himself to the point of exhaustion, has a heart attack and dies.  His wife and daughter are then forced into the service and household of this dickish landowner and his even more dickish son.

The two women are treated as slaves in this new arrangement and the mother faces physical abuse by the landlord while the daughter faces the sexual advances of his son.  A snake is discovered in the house on a day that a special visitor is expected to arrive.  This is a bad omen and it must be killed.  The mother tries to save the snake's life and is thrown to the ground for her troubles.  She  hits her head and later dies from her injuries.

The daughter is tricked into walking alone along a deserted road where she is chased down and raped by the landlord's son.  The sexual assaults continue back at the estate and when she can take no more, she takes her own life.  Then the haunting starts.  The deceased members of the poor farming family cause the members of the wealthy, dickish family to hallucinate and eventually go insane.

Snake Woman's Curse is a beautiful, haunting, atmospheric film.  Most of the violence is done off camera and is left to the viewer's imagination, which I liked, and one genuinely feels compassion for these poor Japanese farmers who suffer at the hands of a "higher class" of people.  I know it won't appeal to everyone, but I think it's an excellent film.

Violence Rating:  2 out of 5
Booby Rating: 1.5 out of 5

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Tokugawa Onna Keizu (1968)

Tokugawa Onna Keizu

Tokugawa Onna Keizu marks the beginning of Teruo Ishii's turn towards the depraved Japanese genre known as pinky violence or bad girl action films, a genre he is recognized as having created.  This film has lots of the pinky but hardly any violence.  His next film Tokugawa Onna Keibatsu-shi, also known as The Joy of Torture, is really where graphic violence is married to gratuitous nudity and the pinky violence genre becomes established.

The shogun is a bit of a pervert.  He wants to find a woman who will love him for who he is and not because he's the shogun but he has trouble finding one.  After witnessing a mole on the inner left thigh of one of the girls in his harem, he becomes obsessed with having her.  The other girls become jealous and threatened by the shogun's affections towards this birthmarked girl because she could produce a male heir and therefore become his favorite.  They hold her down and burn the mole off.  He loses interest in the whole mole thing.

Next, after watching a topless sumo competition amongst the harem girls he becomes enamored with the small but adorable winner played by Yukie Kagawa.  She teaches him some bedroom judo but, after talking in her sleep, the shogun learns she once slept with a monk and he becomes enraged.  She kills herself by biting off her tongue.

"I pooted."

A noble woman staying at his residence is spotted peeing in the bushes and he falls for her.  Eventually she gets pregnant but the shogun isn't sure if the child is his or was fathered by one of his daimyo.  He doesn't know whether to discard her like the other lovers or accept the unborn child and mother into his family.  After forcing himself on several other women, he does some soul searching and realizes that he has been kind of a dick.

Because this is a Teruo Ishii film, it isn't just about the shogun getting it on with his harem girls.  It has depth and makes you reflect on the human condition, about what is important in life, about personal duty and honor.  Tokugawa Onna Keizu can be slow at times and is definitely lacking in violence but it's a beautiful movie and I recommend seeing it.  It will make you think about stuff, and stuff.

Violence Rating:  1 out of 5
Booby Rating:  4.5 out of 5

Here is the shogun wrestling with his demons: