 |
| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
At the height of Meiko Kaji’s career as a Japanese action
heroine in the Female Prisoner Scorpion film series which began in 1972,
the actress joined forces with recurring Delinquent Girl Boss and future
Wolf Guy director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi in a two-film pair of gambling
actioners Wandering Ginza Butterfly and its sister sequel She-Cat
Gambler. Both films made in the same
year as the first two entries in the Female Prisoner Scorpion films, they
were a mixture of Meiko Kaji’s emergence as an important leading lady in the yakuza
action subgenre which included gambling, the deceptive nature of hostess work
and finally brutally violent retaliation.
Previously released on DVD via Synapse Films, both films now come housed
in a digitally restored Arrow Video Blu-ray disc with plentiful extras including
a collector’s booklet and reversible sleeve art. For those just getting into Meiko Kaji as
well as those well versed in her filmography, Arrow Video’s Wandering Ginza
Butterfly collection represents Kaji at the peak of her creative powers and
screen presence.
Higuchi Nami (Meiko Kaji) aka The Red Cherry Blossom,
we learn over flashback and a cool sassy opening sequence where she puts a new
fellow prison inmate in her place, was a Bōsōzoku (Japanese motorcycle gang)
leader jailed for three years following the assassination of a yakuza. Following her sentence, she returns home seeking
residence with her uncle at his pool hall whom she’s a skilled player at. Playing pool against a pimp named Ryuji
(Tsunehiko Watase), with his help she picks up night shifts at a local hostess
club in the Ginza. However when a rival
yakuza gang led by Owada (Koji Nanbara) threatens to take over the club,
murdering Ryuji’s brother in the process, Nami and her uncle take matters into
their own hands defending his pool hall while seeking bloody vengeance against Owada’s
gang.
Picking up where the first film left off and released that
same year is Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2: She-Cat Gambler, a
continuation (and quasi repeat of) the first film which pairs Kaji up with
future Wolf Guy lead Sonny Chiba.
With some of the events and names changed up, this time with Sonny Chiba
playing Ryuji, we learn Nami is on the hunt for her father’s murderer in Hoshiden. Becoming a hostess at a Ginza club once more,
her path crosses with Ryuji (Sonny Chiba) a street rat who takes a liking to
Nami and soon joins forces on her quest for vengeance. Scouring one scuzzy gambling pit after
another until they land at their destination, it sets the stage for an even
grander action heavy finale than the first film with a high body count of well-dressed
yakuza smashing through walls waving katanas about and ample arterial spray.
Both films co-written by Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon
screenwriter Isao Matsumoto and scored by Battles Without Honor and Humanity
composer Toshiaki Tsuhima and released by Toei in between the Female Prisoner
Scorpion films, the Wandering Ginza Butterfly collection is a
splendid dose of 1970s yakuza action flair featuring one of its fiercest
goddesses slicing and dicing her way through adversaries. With each film lensed in Toeiscope
widescreen, the first by Graveyard of Honor cinematographer Hanjirô
Nakazawa and the second by Karate Bear Fighter cameraman Yoshio
Nakajima, the series looks radiant and luminous with frequent nighttime vistas of
neon lights and signs illuminating Tokyo.
Coasting off of the cool and quietly ferocious energy of Meiko Kaji as a
seemingly kindly hostess who is secretly a bloodthirsty warrioress keen on
righting wrongs percolating within the Ginza yakuza world. In the first film, Tsunehiko Watase does an
admirable job of portraying her unlikely ally but it goes without saying Sonny
Chiba is also arguably at the height of his screen persona and plays
excellently off of Meiko Kaji’s fierceness.
Coming to Blu-ray disc for the first time via Arrow Video,
each film includes both new and archival audio commentaries. There’s an archival interview with the
director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi as well as an archival video essay on the work of
Meiko Kaji alongside a newly filmed video interview with Patrick Macias and
Matt Alt on the sequel film She-Cat Gambler. With each film running briskly within the 80
to 90-minute ranges, the double-feature collection of Wandering Ginza
Butterfly while not nearly as talked about as Meiko Kaji’s Female
Prisoner Scorpion series which began the same year is nevertheless an
important addition to one’s yakuza film library and growing appreciation of
Kaji’s oeuvre. Both transfers look splendid
in 2.35:1 scope widescreen with lossless Japanese monoaural sound. The cool energy emanating off of both of
these Kaji films is almost like an aura, a snapshot of then-modern Tokyo with
one of its most violent heroines sneakily lurking its Ginza streets.
--Andrew Kotwicki
