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 Some "modern day slave traders" are kidnapping women to be used as "sex toys".
The slave traders "retaliates in a brutal and vicious way" when some of the
women try and escape from their captors. 1987, 70 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
This is yet another joyless entry in that Japanese rape genre that thanks to
Japan Shock Video, we have all grown to loathe. I probably won't be buying any
more of these (and Japan Shock seems to be promising more sometime in the
future) because when I sat down to watch this one, it was the final one of
these radioactive dog brownies that I had and I wasn't approaching the viewing
of it with my usually schoolgirl giddiness like I do with something from the
Italians or some flick from the forties or even one of those of Godzilla movies. I just thought to myself that I should watch it so that it was finally
done and with the exception of a couple of Men Behind The Sun sequels, there
wasn't anymore Japan Shock DVDs in the MonsterHunter vault that needed to be
analysed in my size 3XL hazmat suit. I realize that this isn't really the
proper
mind set to watch a movie (these were same kind of feelings I had whenever I
had a court date on my motion to revoke probation - didn't want to do it, but
also didn't want a weekend in the stir either), but after watching the other
five or six movies from Japan Shock that ineptly dealt with similar themes
(nasty Japanese guys rape and torture Japanese girls while the plot, acting,
and style disappear as fast as everyone's clothes) you can understand my icy
reticence in preparing to endure this film. I must have checked and re-checked
the running time on the back of this movie eight times (they said it was 70
minutes) and thought that my only break with these kinds of movies is that
usually the running time is exaggerated by several minutes. I was in luck with Female Market, because while they were claiming a 70 minute crapfest, the DVD
player only would recognize 68 minutes and 36 seconds. I breathed a little
easier knowing that I was getting almost 90 seconds off of the threatened
running time.  Armed with the knowledge that this was going to be another sub-70 minute affair,
my mood took a turn for the better and I settled in, praying that nobody would
drop over unexpectedly and see that something called Female Market was playing
in all its sleazy glory on my 12 inch black and white Zenith. Strangely
enough, things began rather prosaically as we followed this girl around town as
she did all the things that single gals who are about to be kidnapped and made
sex slave by the Yakuza are prone to do. She goes to work, she plays tennis,
she goes out to eat with friends, she exchanges banal conversation that in
retrospect was probably designed to make me wish that the sleazy stuff would
hurry up and happen. In these movies that are the cinematic equivalent of
novellas, time is pretty compressed and though it seemed like we knew our
heroine and her really boring existence for a lifetime, it was really only
about two and a half minutes and that's about when she gets into some kind of
traffic
situation with another woman. There's something strange about this other woman
though. Instead of exchanging insurance information with her or obscene
gestures, she puts a cloth soaked in knock out juice around the girl's face and
pulls off a wig revealing that she is really a he, bent on taking this woman
prisoner. When she finally wakes up, she is tied up with a bunch of other
captured gals and it looks like they are being held in a warehouse of some type
(Well, where else would you keep a bunch of captured gals?). That would seem
pretty odd if you woke up and found yourself in that situation, but what made
the scene even stranger was the fact that there was a dinner table set up and
people were enjoying a nice meal. You had a couple of guys there chowing down
and a whole bunch of other women there around the table as well. Okay, so
that's a little "out there" as they say, but what was really, really strange
was that suspended near the table, upside down was this naked chick. Huh. I'm
not really into that whole home decor thing, but I could swear that a better
choice
would have been a nice table cloth and maybe a centerpiece made up of fruit
and/or flowers. Preferably with some bright, cheery colors.  t turns out that this woman is not tied up from the ceiling like that because
she wants to be, but because she is being punished or having her will broken or
something like that. She finally gives in and they make her service a
guy that is there at the dinner table. This guy is apparently a
representative from Africa where all these girls are going to be shipped to
serve all the really rich people there. I'm not really sure why he needed to
be there for the entire movie, but I would guess that he was just keeping an
eye on his merchandise. There was also some kind of sheik that appeared
briefly and I would guess that he was looking to fill out his harem or
something. The girl that we know from the beginning of the movie is outraged
that they've been kidnapped and degraded, but all she gets for her troubles is
a cold shower and then dumped in a cell with the other girls. The introduce
themselves to one another, thus making this film a cut above most of the other
of its ilk, by actually giving the characters names. These names are quickly
forgotten, but our heroine tries to rally the troops by telling them that they
shouldn't give in and that they can escape or some kind of bogus pep talk that
you just know is only going to get some of them whipped and the rest killed.
About this time, the film introduces us to what will pass for our male lead.
He's one of the pieces of trash that is in charge of keeping the girls
prisoner. This means he hangs out in a room with another guy, some porn mags,
lots of cheap booze, and his drug habit. We know he's a good guy deep down,
because he looks kind of sad that all these girls are getting raped and killed
and stuff and he needs to ride the needle to live with himself. This guy is
really pretty much a saint when you think about it. Well, except for the part
where he shoots one of the girls that tries to escape, but I mean, that's him
just doing his job. We all gots to get paid, right? They aren't just giving
that horse away for free, now are they?  The problem with keeping people captive is that they have nothing to do, but
plot their escape. I've always thought it's a bit dumb to try and keep people
prisoner and not give them any diversions. You know, all that stuff about idle
hands and all. If they set those chicks up with an X-Box or a Scrabble board
or something, then who would bother to listen to the whiner that keeps talking
about escaping? Since these guys are pretty short sighted, they just let these
ladies stew and the next thing you know an escape plan is hatched! It
involves some hot soup and a blow job that you just know is going to end up in
John Wayne Bobbit-land. For some reason one of the guys involved in watching
the girls (not our "hero") goes into the cell to give them a cup of Lipton's
best, but demands some action from one of them. She obliges, but he ends up
with hot soup in his face and a little impromptu amputation down there, if you
catch my meaning. Two of the girls grab a shot gun and run away only to be
caught by our hero and the other thugs. Hero shoots one of the girls and they
both get recaptured. I thought the girl that had been shot was dead, so you can
imagine how icky it was when the guy from Africa starting pumping her right
there on the
dining room table. Then she moaned and reacted in pain when he dug his finger
into her bullet would, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was a sadistic
rapist, not a necrophiliac! See, this movie has a certain level of class.
Once he gets done with her, she croaks and then they decide to torture our
heroine for her idiotic escape plan. This involves some acupuncture and that
dude from Africa gets more action! Was that dinner he ate laced with Viagra?
She survives all that torment and is dumped back into the cell. She has
refused to go along with them and will not submit to being sold like all the
other girls. This is when our druggie hero kicks into action. His conscience
returns from its week long vacation and he busts her out of the warehouse.
They run around and for some reason a cop starts shooting at them and even
though he's about six feet away and shooting them in the back, he only manages
to wing the guy. There's a little chase down a subway tunnel and then they
take a ride on the subway and hole up somewhere for some character development
(Hehehe!). They have a rather dumb conversation about something and the next thing I know
this guy is trying to make his move on this woman! She's not exactly what you
would call "in the mood" and seems to resist, but our hero is quite the
Lothario and even though she swears that she won't forget that he shot her
friend, they're going at it in no time. She wants to go to the police and he
says
for her to meet him on the docks and that he's got to take care of some stuff
with those bad guys and then the movie ends when she sees him floating in the
harbor (and I don't mean on an inner tube or nothing!). As the camera pulls
away from her and the credits roll, one is struck by the fact that some of the
people were probably paid money to work on this thing. Oh, probably not the
guys that got to roll around with the ladies, but surely some of the
"actresses" and the guys that had to optically fog all the really objectionable
body parts. There's probably a movie worth making about the female slave trade
in the far east, but unlike something like Men Behind The Sun, this one had no
interest in educating, stirring debate, or entertaining. This one was more
bereft of story than most of the other Japan Shock DVDs we've seen recently.
There weren't any monsters in this one, and there was only the bare minimum of
story: Girl enslaved escapes with drugged out thug. That's it.
That's all we saw in this movie and that's all we know about either of them.
We aren't even given anything convincing about the impact the experience had on
her. After all she's been through, are we really to believe that she's eager
for a roll in the hay with one of the swine that aided in her abuse? If your
thing is seeing Japanese women get abused I assume you already have this or are
in prison somewhere, but for the rest of us that actually demand a sleazy movie
follow some of the basic tenants of movie making such as some story, some style
(no matter how bad) and some background music (there was some at the end of the
movie, but for the entire main part of the film there was only the minimal
dialogue - somewhat stilted in its translation, moans, and screams from various
parties in the film) you can't even enjoy it as scuzzy fun. In fact, just
about none of these movies can be enjoyed as a crappy good time. If you put it
on at a party, most people would probably walk out - not be enthralled by the
trashiness of it all (which is what you would be aiming at). This one gets put
in an industrial dumpster late at night (with tongs). Now, let's see who has
the best deal on that Guinea Pig box set...
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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