WOMAN REVENGER (aka NUDE BODY CASE IN TOKYO) (Taiwan, 1982)
Directed by: Tsai Yang-ming
Starring: Elsa Yeung, Alan Lau, Ko Keung, Ma Sha
Another Tsai Yang-ming film this time starring Elsa Yeung as a Ling, a dancing teacher in Hong Kong whose best friend Meihua is killed by gangsters in Japan. Ling travels to Tokyo and meets with Meifeng, Meihua’s sister, and discovers that Meihua had hidden cocaine from the gangsters before her death. Of course the gangsters capture Meifeng and turn her into a prostitute and Ling tries to save her but loses an eye in the process. What is she to do? Dress in bikinis made out of bandages, put on an eyepatch, and recruit friends who are out for vengeance, too. Like a virtual tour of Japan where every tourist attraction is a chance for revenge, Ling sees Mount Fuji, Sumo games, hot spring baths and even goes to Harajuku before taking the gangsters apart with flying fists, feet, and swords.
Also starring real life gangster Ma Sha this film is like a one stop shop for all of the Black Movies tropes: groups of women getting revenge with martial arts, anti-Japanese sentiment, prostitution, rape, and epic fashion disasters. This really is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a film that is so hard to get we had to have someone translate it for us just so we could write this blurb!