Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion
女囚701号／さそり
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Betrayed by her cop lover, Matsu becomes the silent avenger of a women's prison — Kaji Meiko's icon.
Sirens: prisoner 701, Nami Matsushima, has broken out of a women's prison with her friend Yukiko, and the guards drag them back. Three years earlier Nami was an ordinary young woman in love with Sugimi, a narcotics detective. He sent her undercover into a club run by a yakuza gang, and when they discovered who she was, they raped her. Sugimi had expected it; he used the case to strike a deal with the gang's boss, Kaizu, and to advance his career. When Nami understood, she went at him with a knife in front of police headquarters, and was arrested and sent down.
In prison she barely speaks. The warden, Goda, blames her for every disturbance and sets out to break her: she is tied up in solitary, beaten by guards and tormented by the trustees, a clique of inmates led by Katagiri, and a new cellmate turns out to be a policewoman planted to make her talk. Outside, Sugimi and Kaizu fear her revenge. When Goda punishes the whole prison with days of digging and refilling holes, Sugimi slips in and promises Katagiri her freedom if she kills Nami.
Pushed past exhaustion, the prisoners riot and seize the guards' guns. Katagiri fires at Nami; Yukiko, who cannot speak, throws herself in the way, and before she dies writes in blood that Katagiri shot her. The rioters barricade themselves in a storehouse with hostages. Katagiri tries again to kill Nami and admits that Sugimi gave the order. The guards storm in, fire breaks out, and Nami escapes in the chaos.
Dressed all in black, she returns to the city she left three years before and kills the men who raped her, then their boss. On the roof of the police building she stabs Sugimi again and again until he is dead. In the last scene she is back in prison, walking the corridor in silence.
Starring
Meiko Kajias Nami Matsushima
Prisoner 701, betrayed by the detective she loved, who endures the prison in near silence and waits for her revenge.
Nami Matsushima’s story
Nami was an ordinary young woman in love with Sugimi, a narcotics detective, until he sent her undercover into a gang's club, where she was raped, and used it to strike a deal with the boss. She went for him with a knife outside police headquarters and was sent down. In prison she barely speaks. She breaks out with her friend Yukiko and is dragged back, then tied up, beaten and tormented, and she wins over the policewoman planted in her cell. In the riot Yukiko dies shielding her, and Katagiri admits that Sugimi ordered Nami's death. Nami sets fire to the storehouse and escapes. Dressed in black, she kills the men who raped her and their boss, then stabs Sugimi to death on the police building's roof. At the end she walks a prison corridor in silence.
Isao Natsuyagias Tsugio Sugimi
A narcotics detective and Nami's lover, who used her as bait for a deal with a gang and now wants her dead.
Tsugio Sugimi’s story
Sugimi is a narcotics detective with his eye on promotion, and Nami's first love. He sends her undercover into a gang's club, and when the gang rape her, he threatens their boss, Kaizu, with arrest for drugs and rape, takes a payoff and buries the case. When she comes at him with a knife outside police headquarters, she is the one who goes to prison. Afraid of her revenge, he slips into the prison work site and promises Katagiri, the trustees' leader, her release if she kills Nami. The plan fails. When Nami breaks out, he phones Kaizu to warn him. In the lift at police headquarters she is behind him. He pulls a gun on her and kisses her; she breaks free, chases him to the roof and stabs him to death.
Fumio Watanabeas Warden Goda
The warden, who blames Nami for every disturbance in his prison and is set on breaking her.
Rie Yokoyamaas Katagiri
Leader of the trustee inmates and once a drug courier for the gang, who agrees to kill Nami in return for her release.
Yayoi Watanabeas Yukiko Kida
Nami's closest friend inside, who cannot speak, escapes with her at the start and dies shielding her in the riot.
Hiroko Ogias Rie Shindo
A newer inmate and practised gambler who stands up to the trustees and saves Nami from Katagiri.
Why it matters
Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion was a Toei genre picture, full of the nudity and cruelty that women-in-prison films sold, and critics still disagree about it: Sight and Sound found any feminist reading hard to square with its 'sustained, glib emphasis on female torment'. What it put on the screen was Meiko Kaji's Nami, who hardly speaks. Raped as a result of her lover's scheming and jailed for trying to punish him, she refuses every institution that claims to deal with her: the police, the prison, the gang. The issues are a woman's body used as currency between men, and a legal order that shelters the man who used it. The film became a surprise hit, although its director, Shunya Ito, making his debut, was a union militant whose strikes had put the shoot months behind. The question it leaves is whether revenge is the only language left to a woman the system will not hear.