Baiorensu jakku: jigoku-gai (1988)

... aka: バイオレンスジャック 地獄街

... aka: Violence Jack: Evil Town

... aka: Violence Jack: Evil Town - Part 1

... aka: Violence Jack: Hell City - Evil Town

... aka: Violence Jack, Part 2: Evil Town

Directed by:

Ichirô Itano

Middle chapter of the three-part OVA series based on the Gô Nagai manga, this follows VIOLENCE JACK: SLUMKING (1986) but doesn't continue where that one left off and is an independent story with a new setting and new roster of supporting characters.

Due to a constant stream of natural disasters (lightning storms, earthquakes, etc.), part of Tokyo has sunk deep below the Earth's surface. Now a dark, dreary subterranean wasteland filled with dirt, stone, debris and rubble, the newly-christened "Evil Town" has a populace who've been reduced to murder, criminality, gang activity and worse in order to survive. In a desperate attempt to maintain at least some order, the underground city has been divided into various sections. Section A is the closest thing to "proper" civilization that's around in such trying times and are focused on tunneling their way back up to the surface. Though it has laws, rules, politicians and an operating police force, even there the regular citizens are forced to eat cockroaches and rats. Section B (called "Hell City") is where anything goes, the criminal elements run amok and a violent gang led by hulking Mad Saurus, the biggest, strongest and most feared man there, are in charge. Saurus' lover / sidekick is a husky-voiced blonde named Blue, who struts around in a red hat and jacket, panties and stockings and looks like one of the band members from the cartoon Jem.

While digging tunnels, Section A Officer Kawamori and his men detect a wind pocket, break through a wall and unearth a still-living, super-strong giant. When confronted with members of Saurus' gang, the giant stomps one to death Godzilla-style. The others flee back to Saurus and report what they've just witnessed. The giant of few words (though more than the previous film!) soon makes his identity known: "Call me Jack... Violence Jack."

Kawamori takes Jack to see Mayor Tahei Shibaki, who wastes no time trying to sway him over to their side with rare delicacies like ham and beer. He then explains the severity of their current situation. Supplies are running low, the vermin infestation has caused disease to break out and if they don't find their way to the surface soon everyone will die. He also wants Jack to help them in their fight against the goons in Section B.

However, there's yet another faction of Evil Town: Section C. Populated exclusively by women. the green-haired Aila, who used to work in the cities financial district, and the blue-haired Rikki, an Amazonian bodybuilder, are the closest thing they have to leaders. Flashbacks reveal that soon after the city sank into the ground, the men who currently populate Section A and are now trying to pass themselves off as the good guys, drugged and raped many of the young women there. Some of the victims were killed, other committed suicide and, for self-preservation purposes, the survivors had no alternative but to branch off and sequester themselves in what was once a former shopping mall. The ladies offer to hire Jack for their own protection and, considering his two other options, he agrees. The three sections remain at each other's throats until an all-out war begins.

If you're going to make something gory, over-the-top and ultra sleazy, this is pretty much the way to do it! This is not only far better than the first chapter, with higher-quality animation, more imaginative and sometimes even quite artistic direction and use of color, more memorable characters and an interesting, streamlined, coherent plot, but it's also so tasteless it's almost inspiring!

Since one long gang rape scene clearly isn't enough, may as well have two long gang rape scenes... and throw lesbian and transsexual rapists into the mix for a little variety while you're at it... and then turn one of those rapes into a bloodbath where the attackers get gruesomely slaughtered mid-rape. If it weren't for Japanese censors blurring out certain body parts, these scenes would be explicit to the point of being pornographic. And since a sadistic punk biker gang with members named things like Toad, Wasp, Tomcat and Aids doesn't sound bad enough as is, may as well turn them all into sex-crazed degenerates, as well! Their leader even turns into a big, red, nearly-indestructible demon monster himself toward the end.

While the pervy sexual content is high, the ludicrous amount of blood being flung around is even more memorable. Though I still have a lot more of these things to view, this is probably the goriest 80s anime I've seen thus far. Bodies are torn in half, numerous heads, legs, arms and hands are chopped off, eyeballs pop out, heads are squashed, a man makes out with a severed head before cannibalizing both it and the corpse, vaginas are mutilated, a group of young children get slaughtered in graphic fashion and a woman even gets split in half and her guts go flying when one of the giants decides to rape her! Trust me when I say that what I've just described is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the blood and gore are concerned. You've either been warned or you can consider that a recommendation.

Not surprisingly, the extreme content caused this entry distribution problems in certain parts of the world over the years. A heavily-censored version was released in most countries and it was outright banned in Australia. Here in the U.S., it was originally released to VHS in a cut version by Manga Entertainment but has since become readily available in its uncut form from companies like Discotek Media and Critical Mass. The third and final OVA in this series is Violent Jack: Hell's Wind (1990), which will probably have difficult time measuring up to this one!

★★★

Urufu gai: Moero ôkami-otoko (1975)

... aka: ウルフガイ

... aka: ウルフガイ 燃えろ狼男

... aka: Enraged Werewolf

... aka: Wolf Guy

... aka: Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope

... aka: Wolf Guy: Burning Wolfman

Directed by:

Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Kazumasa Hirai's Urufu gai ("Wolf Guy") began as a two volume manga, first published in 1970 by Bunkasha Comics. From there, it became an even longer-running series of popular paperback novels. While the first few touched on the same territory as the manga, the rest were all-new stories. Despite sharing the same name, the Akira Inugami in the manga and Akira Inugami in the novels do not seem to be the same person. Making it all even more confusing, some of the novels were later turned into manga themselves. An adaptation of the 1970 manga (which dealt with the Akira character as a teenager) was made by director Masashi Matsumoto for Toho Studios in 1973, which is called either Crest of the Wolf or HORROR OF THE WOLF here in America. This pseudo companion film, made for rival Toei Company in 1975, is not based on the manga as is usually reported but instead snips bits and pieces from at least three different "adult wolf man" novels from the same author.

A frantic man runs down the middle of the highway screaming "Help me!" and makes mention of a curse, a tiger and a woman named "Miki." He then ducks into an alleyway where some kind of invisible force promptly turns him into a shredded, bloody mess. Observing all of this, Akira (Sonny Chiba) is taken to the police station for questioning. Apparently this isn't the first crime scene he's showed up at. He's been around during a number of other mysterious deaths. Thankfully the autopsy report comes back that the man was killed by a demon (!) so the cops are forced to let him go.

Akira, with assist from investigative reporter friend Arai (Harumi Sone), decides to look into matters. It turns out the murdered man was formerly part of a not-coincidentally-named rock band called The Mobs, and two of the other members have already been murdered in similar fashion. The only surviving member of the quartet is now Hiruma (Kinji Takinami); a pathetic, homeless drunk. In exchange for a drink, Hiruma reveals what happened to the woman whose name ("Miki Ogata") had been uttered by each victim prior to their deaths. The yakuza-affiliated rock band were ordered to gang rape Miki (Etsuko Nami), a night club singer. She caught syphilis from the encounter, started going crazy, became addicted to smack and then started popping up in various sleazy strip clubs around Tokyo.

As for who ordered the brutal assault, it traces right back to a sadistic gang led by Tsukada (Saburô Date), who use a casino to front for all kinds of criminal activities, and financed by wealthy music producer Keiichi Manabe (Hiroshi Nawa). The gang are also connected to a rising conservative politician by the name of Yoshiyuki Fukunaka (Hiroshi Kondô).

Back when she was still a promising young singer, Miki became romantically involved with Fukunaka's son, Junichi (Ryuji Hayami). Seeing how Miki was just an entertainer and Fukunaka was in the process of trying to hook his son up with the daughter of a wealthy mogul instead, he arranged for the gang to rape her and thus "spoil" her. The plan worked. Junichi dumped her and married the financier's daughter instead, leaving Miki alone (all of her supposed friends also abandoned her after the rape), depressed and suicidal.

Akira is haunted by black-and-white childhood flashbacks of his mother and the entire rest of his clan being massacred by armed men from a neighboring village. He's the last line of a species of wolf-people with special powers, including the ability to see spirits, superhuman strength, agility, healing powers and invincibility, granted on the fifteenth day of the lunar cycle during the full moon. Unlike in the source material, he does not have the ability to shapeshift into an actual monster or werewolf. He is merely human with special powers.

While Akira manages to neutralize the gang and gains the trust of Miki, another danger awaits them. A sinister top secret organization called J.C.I.A., who've been keeping tabs on them all this time, kidnap them and take them to their headquarters. While they're naturally very interested in utilizing Akira's special gifts, they're even more interested in Miki since it turns out she's able to channel her inner rage into an invisible tiger. Easily brainwashing her by using her trauma / trigger points against her, the organization put her to work assassinating their enemies, but Akira is a tougher nut to crack. Resistant to their demands and attempts at bribery, they make him undergo medical torture (depicted with spliced-in grainy footage from a real surgery) without anesthesia and then transfuse his wolf blood into another subject to create a second wolf-man. Afterward, they chain him to his bed with his innards just hanging out!

When the fifteenth day of the lunar cycle finally hits, Akira is finally able to regenerate (giving new meaning to the term "suck that gut in" in the process) and gain the strength and stealth to break chains, bend prison bars, eliminate guards, briefly battle the other wolf guy and then escape. He makes it to the site of his abandoned ancestral village, only to find the locals (descendants of those who had wiped out his people) hostile. They capture him and plot to turn him back over but he's rescued by a lovely young woman named Taka (Yayoi Watanabe). Taka's mother had been friendly with the Inugami people and Taka carries on in that friendly tradition by promptly stripping off in a cave and offering herself up to Akira. Noting that she's a dead ringer for his late mother, he indulges in a little comforting simulated breastfeeding (!) before the two run afoul of J.C.I.A. agent Taro (Kyôsuke Machida) and his men, who attempt to use Miki's powers against them.

Though entertaining throughout, this ends up registering as a minor disappointment by the end, even moreso because the first half is so surprisingly solid. It's well-photographed and acted, stylishly directed, dark and moody (with enough window blind lighting schemes to almost make it feel noirish), seedy, sleazy (there's plenty of blood, sex and T&A to satisfy exploitation fans) and takes itself entirely seriously. It also somehow manages to mostly dodge the "dated camp" label that gets automatically slapped on so many other films from this same era. And, yes, that's even taking into consideration the cheap superimposed tiger effect and funky music score.

Unfortunately, the film grows increasingly sloppier the longer it goes as too many plot shifts occur, too many story threads are left unattended to (the evil politician who sets the ball in motion in the first place is never even dealt with!) and too many underdeveloped characters are introduced. It's hard enough to try to adapt one novel into a film, let alone three or four in just 85 minutes! The aforementioned Horror of the Wolf actually works better as a cohesive whole than this one does but for some reason nobody's even watching that one, probably because it doesn't star Sonny Chiba.

Speaking of Chiba, he's actually pretty great here playing a tough yet likable and fairly well-defined character. Despite his fighting skills, special bloodline, supernatural powers and tough guy exterior, he doesn't play Akira as some one dimensional, strutting, testosterone-fueled macho action figure. Instead, we get a generally kind, thoughtful, empathetic and more soulful sort of protagonist who only resorts to violence when necessary and shows true compassion toward the other characters. Nami also deserves to be singled out for her excellent supporting performance as the tortured Miki.

Cast as seductive female operative Katie, half-American / half-Japanese actress Kumi Tagachi (born Constance Kumi Arnold in North Carolina) was able to parlay her appearance into a brief career as a sex film star that saw her headlining several Japanese Emmanuelle copycats, which were huge box office hits in Japan at the time, and even an unsanctioned remake of Deep Throat! The opening victim is played by Rikiya Yasuoka, who later turned up in the partially-filmed-in-Japan Toxic Avenger Part II (1989). Director Yamaguchi is best know for the popular Delinquent Girl Boss and Sister Street Fighter series' and also made A HAUNTED TURKISH BATHHOUSE (1975).

Mostly unseen by audiences outside of Asia until recently, this was finally given a 2 disc Blu-ray / DVD combo release from Arrow Video in 2017. It comes with interviews with the director, Chiba (who sadly passed away from complications from COVID-19 in 2021) and producer Tatsu Yoshida. The film has also recently been revived to play at genre film festivals, including Sitges in 2021.

★★1/2