Sukeban Boy redux

I promised Ticia and Amy that if Amy wrote her review of Sukeban Boy, I would compose my own. I had originally intended to post the two reviews one after the other, in a sort of Siskel and Ebert move, dueling takes on a seriously twisted little film. The reason I didn't was simple: Amy's review was good enough and reflective enough of my own feelings that I didn't think I had anything to add.

Ticia, though, wouldn't leave me alone. She (correctly) pointed out that I still owed this review. So, blame her for what follows.

As I pondered what new I had to say about Sukeban Boy, I realized that I did have an entirely different angle, one that reflected a question that has lingered in my mind for weeks, one that always bothers me after truly weird films:

What was the filmmaker on about?

I know, I know: why bother to analyze such a wispy, blood-soaked bit of ephemera? That answer is easy: all cultural artifacts, pop or otherwise, may be worthy of analysis and teach us things about both those who produced it and those who consume it.

With Sukeban Boy, we could go a lot of directions with this analysis.

Perhaps the director, Noboru Iguchi, wanted to continue to fuse the ultra-violence and fetish genres of Japanese film, a goal he certainly explored with The Machine Girl. Perhaps seeing the many historical and literary intersections of sex and violence in Japanese (and other) cultures, he wanted us to confront those links in the kind of hyper-literal way that truly bloody special effects can often deliver.

On the other hand, Iguchi may have been exploring the sexual power of women in his repressed culture and the hidden yearning of men to own that power themselves, as Sukeban Boy, by becoming an attractive and powerful girl, does at times in the movie. As scenes meld the power of guns with different female body parts in a run-up to the fight with the witch, where we finally see the sexual power of women for the mystic force that it truly is, the film takes on us on a journey of discovery.

Or maybe Iguchi was just having a great time, turning the knob to 11 every single chance he could and blowing up a lot of shit while showing as much flesh as Japanese law would let him.

Personally, I'm betting on the last one, but it's sometimes fun to find the dusty lit-and-film-crit hat in the corner of the office, put it on, and wax academic.

Sukeban Boy - Not Power Rangers, not by a long shot

(The following is a guest post by Amy, who, with her husband, Eric, and Ticia, watched the movie after seeing its DVD case in my blog photo of beach movies. Enjoy.)

It could easily have been created by the same folks responsible for the Power Rangers TV show for kids, but I really hope it wasn’t.

My BFF insisted I watch it, so what could I say but, okay?

"It's pretty weird," she said. "It's not anime, but it's kind of like anime."

"Martial arts?" I asked.

"Well, huh...not really. Just watch it. You'll see. "

So I watched it last night with Eric, and now I have to wonder: Is this really the kind of movie you want to tell others you’ve watched? The back of the DVD mentions the guilty pleasure of Sukeban Boy. What if others judge me guilty for watching it?

Because they might.

Shit.

Because they would be accurate.

If you watch it, you, like I, might be guilty in the same way that you get when someone persuades you to eat a dish that you insist you do not like--and then you decide you like it and are embarrassed to admit that fact because you don’t know anyone else who would. Like a peanut butter and mayonnaise sammy on Wonderbread.

Just what kind of sandwich is this movie? Sukeban is a bad boy with gender identity issues, a strange father, and a bunch of crazy women after him. Here’s some of what you and he experience:

* heinous thong underwear worn under the blue and red pantyhose, an oddly fascinating and mesmerizing combination

* high school girl uniforms

* other terrible costuming

* girl fighting

* bad boob jobs

* a lot of butts, most of them wearing sumo diapers (Maybe that's a cultural thing, but ick!)

* fakey gore scenes

* strange fight clubs with stranger bosses

* gangs with names like "full frontal women," "monk women," "the braless women," and the "Bang Bang Bang, half naked women"

* bad martial arts with such fight moves as "Can Can dance of doom" and the "high kick of death"

Did I mention fart jokes?

In spite of the constant bad acting, I ended up liking Sukeban and cheering when he triumphs over the baddies. Mochico/Full Frontal Woman is also cool, whether she’s practicing humility after school or hatcheting off a bad girl’s legs (oops: spoiler alert).

Did I sense a bit of a Quentin Tarentino vibe? This may be worthy of further research.

Is this a fetish movie? Well, yes. But what kinds of fetishes? I'm sure I could not list them all. Eric thinks perhaps some of them might have to do with repetition and OCD.

Each individual element of this movie is so very wrong. Put them all together, though, and the film works. I loved its uniqueness, and I loved that something so weird made me laugh for an hour.

As the box said: It is a guilty pleasure. It is Sukeban Boy!