DVD Review: Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Beast Stable

The third in the Female Prisoner series and the last to be directed by Shunya Itô, Beast Stable is a visually spirited blood-spattered caper which introduces many new elements absent from the first two instalments. (Familiarity with the plot of the previous films is not a prerequisite for enjoying this one. Just know that the protagonist is angry for good reason.)

Having escaped from prison during a transfer, and sliced off the arm of one of her captors in the process, our heroine Matsu (the ever brilliant Meiko Kaji) lies low in a sordid district of Tokyo. She befriends Yuki, a well-meaning but, let’s face it, pretty unhinged prostitute who gives sexual favours to her own mentally retarded brother. She is also, lest there still be a squalor shortfall, pregnant with the brother’s child.

Add to this mix another pregnant prostitute, a sadistic brothel madam, a few yakuza thugs and the one-armed cop now especially keen on doing unpleasant things to Matsu, and here is a cast with a high probability of cutting each other open as soon as is practical.

Beast Stable constitutes an uneasy combination of Japsploitation staples and a more reflective aspiration to emotional resonance, and is all the better for the unease. There are the wild Eros-and-Thanatos juxtapositions, the lurid brutality and the general psychosexual outrageousness of the previous two films. But there is also a clear attempt by Itô to inject some empathy into the sensationalist genre.

Yuki is a genuine friend to Matsu until a craven blackmail by the police forces her to betray the fugitive. For her part, when Matsu is not hacking at the flesh of her pursuers she is trying to protect the put-upon prostitutes from their ruthless employers. The friendship between Yuki and Matsu culminates in the most visually beautiful and subtle scene in the film, as lighted matches rain down on Matsu in the sewer where she hides.

This is broad-stroke cinema, and they’re blades not brushes. But Itô’s attempts to widen the remit of the genre are fairly successful. Fans of the series expecting more guilt-free jailhouse savagery (the first film was the inspiration for Tarantino’s disappointing Kill Bill) might be put off by the slower pace and more ruminant mood. Even they will agree, however, that Beast Stable is an intriguing addition to Itô’s and Kaji’s careers, and a unique mix of blood and sympathy.

Sam Healy