What Shunya ITO created with Sasori is definitively one of the best wip-flicks out there. Combining sleazy exploitation - including all needed elements from group showers to lesbian sex encounters to rape - and avantgarde-resque installments mostly using colour and theatre settings this is a bit more than the usual misogynic sleaze fest. Featuring the unique Meiko KAJI turning the damsel in distress-character into a dangerous damsel that kicks arse this is only topped by the second installment.

"Exploitation" cinema is something I have basically zero familiarity with. I thought this was pretty entertaining and intriguing, and I'm eager to learn more about the motivations behind the making of such films, beyond the obvious titillation and revenge wish fulfillment.

ass n titties all around, ass n titties all a bound, glad this film, frank had found, i JO to this film all through town.

An incredibly bad ass movie with awesome violence, nudity, and artistic style.

Doesn't have a very original story and not the fastest pace either, but it's entertaining. Has some fun killings too, and that shower scene is pretty badass

pure awesomeness beyond comprehension

Stylish pinky violence with more to show for itself than your average exploitation flick.

Meiko Kaji plays Sasori, a woman falsely imprisoned after being betrayed and framed by a former lover and his gang. Sasori is not just tough, she's incredibly bright and determined, and after enduring the standard WIP trials (including a very sexy lesbian scene with an undercover cop posing as a fellow prisoner), Sasori actually escapes the prison and exacts bloody revenge on all the men who put her there. A classic that spawned three sequels.

There's plenty of violence and nudity to satisfy those who crave such things, but I think exploitation is mainly for hipster college kids. As a revenge film, it's fairly satisfying. It's also a Seijun Suzuki-style romp, and here is where it shows the most promise. Ito doesn't do it with the same reckless abandon that Suzuki does, but there's enough creative flourish to keep it interesting.

The style is at times intoxicating and its so lurid, fitfully bizarre and amusingly depraved that it's hard for me not to like it a lot.