Film Information
“Sex & Fury,” original Japanese title “Furyō Anego-den: Inoshika Ochō” (Legend of the Delinquent Female Boss: Inoshika Ochō) is a 1973 Japanese erotic action period film produced by Toei Studios Kyoto and directed by Noribumi Suzuki. Starring Reiko Ike. Swedish model and actress Christina Lindberg played a supporting role.
Set in Japan in the late Meiji period (1886–1905), the film depicts the battle of a female gambler called “Inoshika Ochō,” who becomes involved in international intrigue and tries to take revenge on her father’s killers.
Screenplay by Masahiro Kakefuda and Noribumi Suzuki.
Based on the manga “Inoshika Ochō” (1968–1969) by Tarō Bonten.
Produced by Kanji Amao.
Music by Ichirō Araki.
Cinematography by Motoya Washio.
Art direction by Akira Ishihara.
Edited by Isamu Ichida.
Assistant director is Seikō Shimura.
Distributed by Toei.
Languages are Japanese and partly English.
88 minutes.
Plot
In 1886 (Meiji 19), when Kyōko Kasai was only three years old, she witnessed the murder of her father, Tokuzō Kasai (Taiji Tonoyama), who was a detective with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. The only clue left behind was three hanafuda cards (flower cards: Japanese domino-size playing cards) he had been holding at the moment of his death: the Boar, the Deer, and the Butterfly (Ino, Shika, and Chō).
Nineteen years later, in 1905 (Meiji 38), Kyōko (Reiko Ike), who had been raised as an adopted daughter by the pickpocket boss Ogin the Tailor (Akemi Negishi), had become a female gambler known as “Inoshika Ochō.”
In Kanazawa, a young man attempts to assassinate Giichi Kurokawa (Seizaburō Kawazu), the shadowy power broker of the political world and president of the Seishinkai, but fails. While fleeing, he is saved by Ochō. The man turns out to be Shūnosuke Hiiragi (Masataka Naruse), the surviving son of Shūzō Hiiragi, former president of the Min’yūkai.
Returning to Ogin in Asakusa, Ochō begins searching for Yuki (Rie Saotome), a young girl who was sold to a brothel. Ochō finds that Yuki has been sold into servitude to Naozō Iwakura (Hiroshi Nawa), president of Iwakura Construction.
Iwakura invites Ochō to the Shinbashi residence of the British trader Guinness (Mike Danning). There, he arranges a poker match in which Yuki’s freedom is wagered between Ochō and Christina (Christina Lindberg), a British female dancer.
Guinness has been using Christina as a spy to gather Japanese military secrets, while he and Kurokawa are engaged in negotiations intended to lead Japan into a second opium war.
During the game, Hiiragi and his fellow anti-establishment comrades storm the Guinness residence in an attempt to assassinate Kurokawa, who is there. Christina drives them off with a pistol, but becomes shaken up seeing Hiiragi. The two had met and fallen in love while Hiiragi was studying medicine in Britain.
Ochō wins the match, but before releasing Yuki, Iwakura rapes her.
Kurokawa and Iwakura, colluding with foreign forces, plot conspiracies to gain rights and interests, using the police and the yakuza to eliminate dissidents.
Learning that her father was killed during these struggles, Ochō tracks down the three individuals responsible for her father’s death, guided by the message her father left behind.
Commentary
Overview
This film was released in Japan in 1973 as part of a double feature with Toei film “Mamushi no Kyōdai: Musho-gurashi Yo-nen Han (The Viper Brothers: Four and a Half Years in Prison)” directed by Kōsaku Yamashita.
The film is a sexploitation work that centers on a female-led revenge drama while combining elements of Toei’s yakuza and porn films, period drama, and spy action. It is regarded as a representative work of Toei’s “Pinky Violence” line of the 1970s.
The film was directed by Noribumi Suzuki, who had directed yakuza and porn films for Toei from the late 1960s to the early 1970s.
Reiko Ike, who had appeared in several Toei porn films directed by Suzuki, plays the protagonist Kyōko Kasai / Inoshika Ochō.
Christina Lindberg—who gained international fame through her appearance in the Swedish sexploitation film “Exponerad” (1971)—plays Christina, a British secret intelligence agent.
Highlights
The highlights of the film are two major battle scenes: one early in the film, in which Ochō is attacked by yakuza while bathing and fights them completely nude in a snow-covered courtyard, splattered with blood; and another at the end of the film, in which she battles on while wounded and covered in blood, wearing a half-open kimono, before walking away as hanafuda cards scatter through the air.
Rating
In Japan, at the time of the film’s original release, there was no official age-based rating designation. However, due to its explicit sexual content and graphic violence, it has often been treated as an adults-only film in later re-screenings.
Outside Japan, the film is frequently classified as adult-oriented or given an R rating (restricted to adult audiences) for theatrical screenings and home-video or streaming distribution.
Reception and Evaluation
Upon its original release in Japan, the film was received as one of the many entertainment movies (called program pictures) mass-produced by Toei at the time and achieved only moderate box-office success.
From the 1990s onward, however, Toei’s Pinky Violence films of the 1970s were reassessed from the perspectives of subculture and genre cinema, and this film likewise came to be celebrated as a cult classic.
Outside Japan, an English-subtitled DVD release in the United States in 2005 helped establish the film’s reputation among Western cult film fans as a representative example of 1970s Japanese exploitation cinema.
Internationally, the film is often praised as an artistic work for its striking artificial color design dominated by vivid primary colors, its painterly compositions, its stylized swordplay, and its stylish action sequences.
The film is also cited as one of the reference sources for Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Vol. 1” (2003) and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2” (2004). The snowy final battle scene at the end of “Vol. 1” is a direct homage to this film.
On the Film Adaptations of the Original Manga “Inoshika Ochō”
“Inoshika Ochō” was serialized from 1968 to 1969 in the manga magazine “Manga OK” by Tarō Bonten, a tattoo artist and manga author. It is a manga characterized by eroticism, graphic cruelty, and an outlaw aesthetic.
The 1969 Toei film “Delinquent Boss: Wolves of the City” (original Japanese title: Furyō Banchō: Inoshika Ochō), directed by Yukio Noda, was the first film adaptation of the manga.
“Sex & Fury” is the second film adaptation.
As a sequel to “Sex & Fury,” “Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition and Torture” (1973, original Japanese title: Yasagure Anego-den: Sōkatsu Lynch), directed by Teruo Ishii, was produced, with Reiko Ike once again portraying the role of Ochō.
Home media
Panik House Entertainment (US) released the film with English subtitles on DVD for the first time in 2005.
In 2007, Toei Video (Japan), Fabulous Films (UK), and Umbrella Entertainment (Australia) released the film on DVD.
Discotek Media (North America) released the film on blu-ray in 2024.
The original Japanese version and English subtitled version of the film are also available on some video streaming services.
