Female Convict Scorpion — Jailhouse 41
aka Joshuu Sasori — Dai 41 Zakkyobo
1972 
Meiko Kaji — Matsu/Scorpion/Sasori
Fumio Watanabe — Warden Goda
Kayoko Shiraishi — Oba
Yukie Kagawa — Haru
Directed by Shunya Ito
The second film in the Scorpion Series. This one is set differently but still works as a keen 1970’s revenge movie. Our Heroine Matsu/Scorpion is chained up in the dark, she have been there a year since the end of the last movie. Guards appear to tell her she is being trotted out for a day because a bigwig is coming to visit the prison. The Warder is leaving the prison to be promoted, but is determined to drive her mad before he leaves as revenge for his eye being ruined. He orders her hosed off, and we are treated to a long long long scene of Matsu being blasted by a fire hose. The Inspector shows up for the prisoners lined up to greet him. Everything is going fine until Matsu is brought out. The other prisoners are shocked to see her, some have been there for months without ever seeing the woman they hear so much about. Matsu is still weak from being bound. The Inspector goes over to see her with the Warden, and Matsu tries to stab the Warden in his good eye, but misses. She does manage to accomplish forcing the Inspector to pee his pants, to the amusement of the other prisoners. Amusement quickly turns to a full blown riot, but it is quickly quelled, with the prisoners on digging duty and Matsu is tied to a tree, and the Warden orders four guards to rape Matsu, while the other prisoners have to watch.
The other prisoners turn on Matsu and begin beating her in a paddywagon on the drive back to the prison. One of the prisoners tells the driver that Matsu is dead. He stops the car to check (he is one of the guards who raped her), but she wakes up and strangles him. The other prisoners kill the other guard, and the girls escape. The Warden arrives in a little while to find a burning Paddywagon, Seven missing prisoners, and a guard stipped down with a large branch stabbed in his crotch. The girls hide out in an abandoned town, and beat a dog to death for supper (continuing a tradition of a dog being beaten to death in Scorpion movies). Later, the oldest prisoner, Oba, gets sick of Matsu staring and starts ranting about how her husband cheated on her, so she killed their two year old and stabbed their unborn child while still inside her, and flashed the scar. They then find an abandoned old lady in the ghost town clutching a knife, left behind because she was too old. Then we get a sad song explaining what the prisoners did.
| Oba, killed her children |
| 2 – Had a son by former marriage, but new lover bullied the son so she killed the lover |
| 3 – Hated her lover’s wife so much she poisoned her |
| 4 – Prostitute that caused men to fight over her |
| 5 – Pyromaniac |
| 6 – Father tried to rape her, so she killed him |
| Matsu |
The prisoners run the next day, but the old lady dies and gives her life energy to Matsu in a beautifully filmed sequence. That night, the prisoner with a son sneaks off to see him, but their are cops waiting and they threaten to hurt the boy if she doesn’t show where the prisoners are hiding. Scorpion saw her leave, and captures the guard who was trailing the Mother Prisoner back to the hideout. The cop gets hatcheted by the Mother Prisoner, but he manages to get a shot off and shoots Haru, a different prisoner.
Next we see a bus full of Moron Pigmen who brag about raping girls at gunpoint while Japan occupied China during the war. They then start feeling up and lifting the skirt of the tour guide, who in true Japanese fashion just slaps them away and continues work. Later Convict Rose is out peeing, but three of the Moron Pigmen see her, and quickly catch then proceed to rape her. Unfortunately they kill her, and you see the river run red with her blood. The remaining five escapettes catch the three guys and hijack the tour bus they are on. They strip down the guys, beat them, and trample on them, then start terrorizing the rest of the passengers for thinking they are better than the escapettes. So some of the passenger women are also stripped down and humiliated.
After another art house song number, there is a roadblock, and Oba makes Matsu get out as a decoy so the bus can get through. But a second roadblock is right behind the first, with the Mother Prisoner’s child on a truck. She gets out, but is then shot in front of her son. The Old prisoner kills the bus driver and runs the bus herself into the barricade, but the bus becomes trapped. The Warden then used Matsu to check to see if the hostages are okay. Matsu goes up to the bus, tells Oba “You sold me” and proceeds to return to the Warden and say all the hostages are dead. The cops open fire and move in on the bus. Most of the hostages and escapettes eat it, but Oba still lives, and is thrown in the back of a Paddy Wagon with Matsu. The Warden orders Matsu to be “Killed while escaping” during the ride back to prison. The guards take Matsu out and order her to “take a walk” but Oba interferes and Matsu gets a rifle from one of the guards and kills both of them (including a guard who after being shot gets impaled through his hands and rotates 360 degrees on a wooden wheel). Oba lasts a little longer but dies in a garbage dump, and Matsu walks on.
Later, we see the Warden dressing up for his new promotion, and is being driven to work, when suddenly his car has a wooden soldier thrown through the windshield. Matsu appears, dressed all in black like in the first film (and still looking like the Wicked Witch) and stabs the Warden. And Stabs him. And Stabs him. And Stabs him. Seriously, there is a whole lot o’ stabbin’ going on. Finally he falls down some stairs, and dies, and his fake eye pops out. Then we get a final art house sequence where prisoners run through the empty streets of the city. And there you have it. One of the best Revenge/Women in Prison movies ever made (though in my opinion not as good as the first one).
Rated 8/10
Please give feedback below!
Email us and tell us how much we suck!
