Summary:
The final chapter in the Female Prisoner Scorpion series.
My Thoughts:
And so at last we come to the end of the great Matsu the Scorpion’s bloody, weird, and incredibly thrilling saga. This is the only entry in the series not directed by Shun’ya Ito, so I was a bit nervous going into this film; I’ve really enjoyed all the FPS movies, and I really didn’t want the final outing to fall flat on it’s face.
To my great delight, this film didn’t fall flat; it delivered everything I’d want from an outing with Matsu. At the same time, Matsu’s story seems to be wearing a little thin; at this point in the saga she’s escaped from prison with others, had her revenge, and in the last entry (“Beast Stable”) she even become a kind of savior for oppressed women. In this entry, history more or less repeats itself; the storyline in “Grudge Song” is relatively the same as the first and second entries (“FPS #701” & “FPS: Jailhouse 41”), only the story is compressed into an hour and a half. If you’ve seen the other entries, you pretty much know what’s going to happen in this entry, and while there isn’t necessarily a problem (people still line up for Marvel movies, and they’re all relatively homogenous), to me, the series has started to loose a bit of it’s appeal, and I honestly think ending it here was probably the best choice: go out on a note that is still relatively positive, and people will be keener to return to the franchise. I, for one, will happily go through Matsu’s journey multiple times in my life.
“I go on singing my stupid grudge blues.”
At the beginning of this story, Matsu (Meiko Kaji, “Lady Snowblood”) is still on the run from the police. She soon runs into a man named Kudo (Masakazu Tamura), they become tenuously romantically entwined and Kudo helps her, for a time. After the police capture Kudo, and he reveals Matsu’s hiding spot, they arrest her, and Matsu vows revenge on Kudo.
So despite the fact that the plot in this film covers the same ground as some of the other flicks in this series, I really am sort of okay with that. When you enter a franchise, you sort of have to expect that some things will be similar; you don’t go into a James Bond movie hoping the film shies away from gunfights and Aston Martins; you don’t go into Marvel movies and hope they shy away from the superhero stuff. So when I go into a Female Prisoner Scorpion movie, I expect that there will be bloody violence, revenge, and, yes, females in prisons. If you’ve liked this series so far, you’ll probably find enough to enjoy in this entry too.
I honestly thought this film was a bit more fun than the last entry in the series, “Beast Stable”. It moves faster, there’s more action, and the violence isn’t as f*cked up (no forced abortions in this entry! Yeah!). Since Hasbe directed this entry, I was also sort of worried that the film would loose the bold stylistic choices that Ito infused into the series, but to my great delight, I found the tone in this entry almost matched the others perfectly. The kills are just as inventive and memorable as those that we get in some of the earlier entries; the part where Matsu stabs a man with a white rose and the blood changes it to red was particularly inventive. There’s also a very memorable fight scene near gallows, and that scene uses a lot of the more stylized lighting; shifting from red to blue depending on the perceived outcome of the fight. There are also moments where red light flashes across Matsu’s face as she thinks about revenge, and that particular choice greatly reminded me of “Kill Bill Vol 1.” The unmatched badass Meiko Kaji still gives this entry her all, and she’s still amazing.
Verdict:
This last entry feels a bit superfluous, but I suppose that’s how all franchises feel when you go beyond three entries. I still love Matsu the Scorpion, and I still really enjoyed this entry, even if it was a touch unnecessary. Though I don’t think this adds a ton to her story, it has enough of an entertainment value that I’m still happy this sits on my shelf.
Review Written By: