Terrifying Girls School

Terrifying Girl's school: Lynch law classroom (1973) Norifumi Suzuki

To begin with, can I just say that Miki Sugimoto (Noriko in the film) is such a piece of ass. Oh right... the plot... The premise of the film is that three juvenile delinquents are sent to a girls reform school, and have to battle it out with the corrupt teachers and the horrifying student 'discipline committee'. The three newbies, led by Noriko, or 'the boss with the cross' band together with some other unhappy students and wreak havoc with the corrupt system; with plenty of torture, girlfights, and blackmail along the way. Towards the end Reiko Ike appears as Maki, Noriko's rival hellbent on revenge. Any movie that has both Miki Sugimoto and Reiko Ike in it is OK by me, but this film is particularly delicious. The innovative methods of torture, both physical and mental, are a testament to director Norifumi Suzuki's (perhaps very personal) understanding of sado-masochistic erotica. Rich color, tight framing, slick costumes, and close-up shots of the terrified eyes of the victims characterize the torture scenes. The clear sense of fashion and bad girl posturing by characters such as Noriko are charming, and invite the viewer into the fantasy space of the film. Suzuki also shows us that he is aware of this tone in the film by introducing the character Emi Jô, a James Dean wanna-be, who despite his dark glasses and too cool for school attitude, doesn't quite measure up to his image. My favorite scene with this character is one in which he calmly lights a cigarette from the flames of his burning car, then turns around to walk away, cool as can be, only to slip and fall flat on his ass.

This movie came to my attention because it is featured heavily in a situationist film (by Guy Debord) in which the scenes are placed in a context that accuses them of being anti-feminist. I couldn't sit through the whole thing, because it was inane and poorly made, but I believe the main issue that concerned them was that of sexualizing women. I include this information in this post because I think that it is interesting that this little gem of a B-movie was considered, by this group of academics, to be the most representatative of all the sexploitation films that they were protesting against. It is also interesting to consider that time itself has changed what this film means, maybe in the 70's the Debord film was important, or at least not ridiculous.

At any rate, if you want to see Miki Sugimoto jump over a bunch of oil drums on a motorcycle, and believe me, you do, then I suggest you watch this movie.

available to rent through netflix, as part of the pinky violence collection, or for sale at amazon.com