RICA R1 DVD Review

With some excellent DVD-releases last year, the sub-sub-sub-genre of exploitation cinema called "Pinky Violence" got some major attention. Even I heard of it!

And although my DVD collection contained quite a healthy percentage of Japanese movies I had no previous knowledge about these films whatsoever.

Which is a shame: total ignorance of a genre is never something to be proud of, especially here at ScreenAnarchy. So when distributor Exploitation Digital (what's in a name...) announced that they would be releasing the three Rica movies in the USA on DVD I thought, what the hell, lets try one!
So this is my review for the first, titled "Rica".

And oops..."what the hell" indeed!
You know you're in for a strange (and possibly terrible) ride when the front of the box reads: "THE SHOCKING STORY OF A JUVENILE SLUT NAMED RICA"
This movie wears its exploitation and violence proudly for all to see, and redefines the term SPEED in storytelling. Throw in a bit of contemporary Seventies social commentary, which today is very interesting from a historical viewpoint, and you get a special cocktail.

Read on at your own peril...

History lesson:

Toho Eiga Co. released the first "Rica" in 1972 with enough success to warrant two sequels. These three movies are examples of "Pinky Violence", films combining the sleaze of the Japanese sexploitation "Pink" movies with the cartoonishly violent yakuza films of the time.
Both genres were very popular in the early Seventies. In their battle with television, the Japanese studios started to allow showing more sex and more violence, things you couldn't possibly broadcast then. And it made sense too: the Pink softcore-sex movies had to strictly adhere to regulations, like the famous "no pubic hair" rule. So in order to be able to up the ante in shock value, violence started to seep in. Pinky Violence films often show women being mistreated and raped, women being part of gangs, women retaliating violently and just refusing to take punishment silently anymore.

Interestingly, this allowed the filmmakers to include a lot of social criticism in these movies. The role of women in society, and their seen position as naturally docile and subservient to men was being challenged in no subtle way. This coincided with the coming of age of a whole generation of people who grew up after the second world war. Japan was a changed country which had started to implement laws about equality of the sexes, allowing women unheard-of freedoms for the first time (well, at least on paper). People who are interested about this, please read this article over at Cinebeats, a very comprehensive view coupled with an extensive historical background (and, importantly, a good read).

The Rica movies managed to throw in yet another interesting ingredient which would set them slightly apart from the others: USA-hatred. Multiple times the story focuses on despicable behavior of US GI's, both in Japan and in Vietnam. Which, this being 1972 when Vietnam was very much a news item (and atrocities were on view on an almost daily basis), was of course a bit like shooting fish in a barrel...


The Plot:

Spoiler alert of sorts: I'll use a lot of detail in the next paragraph, but it's to make a point so bear with me. If you want to remain totally fresh please skip to the section called "The Movie".

A member of Rica's gang poisons herself and lies dying on the beach. In death her body aborts a half-developed fetus, which Rica promptly puts in a basket. She delivers this to its father, a yakuza thug who dumped the mother the moment he found out about her pregnancy (the reason for her suicide), and demands a decent burial. The thug is not happy with being shamed so publicly and challenges Rica to a fight. Rica accepts and after some brutal fisticuffs the guy dies, but not before holding Rica down long enough for the police to arrest her.
As she is dragged to jail you see the terrible retribution visited upon the other members of her gang: the women are beaten, raped and kidnapped by the yakuza. You also get to see Rica's backstory: her mother was raped as a schoolgirl shortly after the war by US GI's, part of the occupation force. Rica was the half-blood result of this, and to provide for them her mother became a concubine. When Rica was a teenager she got raped by her mother's client, after which she entered into a violent gang of prostitutes herself.

Immediately after arriving in jail (or rather "reform school") Rica fights her way to the top of the food chain and develops a teenage crush on the school's doctor. One of Rica's gang members has escaped the kidnapping, and she visits the prison to tell Rica what happened: the women have been sold as sex-slaves to the American soldiers in Vietnam, and will be shipped soon. Rica quickly escapes from jail and contacts the human traffickers to buy her girls free. When she hears she has only half a day to raise the 3 million yen she blackmails the man who raped her as a teenager. This succeeds but on the way to the harbor she gets ambushed by the yakuza who want to steal her money. She is saved by a mysterious hero but arrives too late to prevent the shipment. However, the fight in the harbor has...

TIME OUT!
OK, before you think I just spoiled the whole movie, guess again. This covers only the first twenty minutes.

I shit you not, I checked my player and could hardly believe my eyes. Other movies might just now arrive at the flashback scenes of her youth, but not "Rica": that was over and done with in less than ten minutes, together with several deaths, fights, rapes and maybe even a conversation or two.
This movie hits the ground running and only increases velocity from then on.

I can't recall another movie which moves the plot forwards with such breakneck speed. You hardly get the time to breathe, let alone getting titillated, shocked or offended!
Anyway, you see where this is going probably: Rica gets wronged, Rica fights, Rica gets revenge but gets wronged by several other people, Rica fights, Rica goes to jail again, Rica escapes...or fights...or gets revenge in jail... or something like that. Maybe in a different order. But by the end of the movie you've seen loads of naked women (no bush!), even more fighting and a couple of really gruesome deaths.
Welcome to Pinky Violence!


The Movie:

So how bad is it? Well, pretty bad to be honest. The film "Rica" looks so fake you never get the impression you're watching something from the real world. Acting is ba-a-a-ad and it was surprising to see so many similarities between this movie and European exploitation fare like the "Emanuelle"-movies (one "m" only, for copyright reasons) starring Laura Gemser.

Having said that, the movie looks really colorful and the music is funky. And it's The Seventies, so there's always the chance everything really looked this colorful and fake! Even if cinematography isn't always too hot, what's on screen is worth watching most of the time, and that remarkable speed makes sure you never get even a chance to get bored (with the notable exception of a song-and-dance routine by star Rika Aoki).

If you're into exploitation fare this is fun enough, but do know there is far more violence than sex here: most of the nudity concerns breasts popping out whenever someone is stripped against her will. One or two very graphic dismemberments with gallons of (very) fake-looking blood clearly show that the accent here lies more with the Violence than with the Pinky.

As for offensiveness, this movie is an odd case: there is lots to be offended by, rapes happen by the boatloads (literally!), but at least we don't get any of this nonsense about women who like being raped after a few minutes of moaning. The "Hanzo the Razor" movies are in my opinion the only example where this actually works, because they use it as a joke. Here in "Rica", rape is always shown as obviously unsolicited and ugly, an attitude I found refreshing. Also the women who fight this are rewarded, the ones who allow it (or actively help the male gangs) get punished. Girl power!
The very male-chauvinist yakuza are painted here as total bastards who use the women as cattle. They just can't believe they've been bested by something like a woman even when they're being killed by one! Fight choreography is generally good, again the movie is more about violence than sex, and it shows the women as being tough, resilient, and definitely equal to the men, a case which certainly can't always be made for European exploitation.

About its star Rika Aoki: tastes may differ but while everyone keeps remarking in-film how incredibly beautiful Rica is, the actress playing her doesn't quite radiate that. Until she needs to fight though: then she suddenly brightens up the screen, and she looks tomboyish enough to pull it off. She certainly seems more believable with a knife in her hands than with a microphone.


Conclusion:

I swear at some point in the near future I plan to watch some "normal" movies again, the last few I've reviewed were all batshit crazy! However, this entry was certainly more interesting than most and if you like Seventies' exploitation fare I certainly recommend this. Repulsive though much of the content may be, the very speed at which the thing moves is this film's saving grace.


On to the DVD:

Exploitation Digital did a fine job with this, I can only hope the others will look just as fine.
Correct aspect ratio, sharp, colorful, all's good. The only minuses are that the image is grainy as hell (but that might be due to the original film stock, so that's no biggie), and watching it frame by frame uncovers loads of interlace-combing (see all the screenshots on this page? Took a while to find usable ones!). The funky soundtrack sounds clear enough, no complaints, and the subs are really good.

Extras: we get a still gallery which for a change is nice, because it doesn't consist of movie stills but is entirely based on original promotion material like lobby cards and handouts (complete with spelling errors and improper use of the word "slut"). But the real treasures are the trailers for all three Rica films. Cool!
Speaking of trailers, there are four for other movies by Exploitation Digital. Two of these trailers are FAR more sexually explicit than the whole "Rica" movie. Exploitation trailers are fun so I'll go into these in some detail. Featured are:

"Lady Ninja Kasumi", a trashy sex/violence/fairytale sort of picture by the looks of it.

"Emanuelle's Daughter" aka "Emanuelle, Queen of Sados". Did I mention Laura Gemser earlier? Here she is in all of her glory: the only parts of her you can't see are on the inside. This trailer is loaded with softcore-or-is-it-hardcore shots, rapes, and even features nudity of a very young teen, well beyond the point I consider to be disturbing (and might be actually illegal to film). Offensive doesn't begin to describe this.

"Yellow Emanuelle": well done, this time even the title is offensive! No Laura Gemser, but Chai Lee (who looks very Asian but remarkably non-yellow) and Ilona Staller (she of Italian Parliament fame).

"Porno Holocaust" by (who else) Joe d'Amato. Despite the title this was the tamest trailer sex-wise, but plenty of very bad special effects make-up concerning the zombies and their victims. But again, what a title!

Exploitation Digital, listen to me: release a trailers-only disc! This is gold...

So extra-wise it's OK, but not too special (the funniest ones are not related to "Rica"). I would have loved one of those booklets Eureka provided with each of their "Hanzo the Razor" discs, but fair is fair: this is a decent enough release.