SCORPLOITATION CINEMA

Nerdcore Astrotypes:

Scorploitation Cinema – Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion

Our culture is saturated with stories of Mars archetypes. Mars is, of course, the planet of war, and his influence is seen in all stories of great heroism and courage. These are often made manifest by Mars' fiery side, Aries, in stories where a young man seeks to prove himself, gain power, save the day, and get the girl.

But there's another side to Mars. Mars is not only the ruling planet of proud Aries, but of under-handed, intense, mysterious Scorpio. And while the Scorpio archetype may not seem as overtly valorous as the Aries stories, their tales always involve a figure who is willing to endure great hardships for what they perceive to be a noble goal. And since Scorpio is a water sign, one intimately tied to emotion, that goal may involve the destruction of those that have caused the Scorpio pain.

Sasori Onna

1972 saw the birth of a Japanese cult classic, Joshuu 701-Gou: Sasori.

Literal translation? Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion. And it's not just a clever title; this is a straight-up Scorpio story of love, sex, betrayal, and death. It's also a women-in-prison flick, and that's pretty hot in a trashy way. Trashy-hot is another great staple of the Scorpio archetype.

Following a failed prison break, our protagonist, the lovely Nami Matsushima (played by Meiko Kaji, and known among the other prisoners only as "Matsu,") lies face-down and hog-tied in solitary confinement. The prisoner who is assigned to issue her daily meals happens to be an enemy of hers, and is using her influence to kick Matsu while she's down. She taunts her, beats her, encourages her to eat the food off the floor like the dog that she is. All the while, Matsu remains silent and solemn, an icy glare as her only response.

The woman says that she thinks Matsu "must be very cold" from having to lie on the floor all day. She covers her in a wet, freezing blanket. This finally gets a reaction out of Matsu: a knowing smile. A smile that knows it will have its revenge.

Sure enough, the next time the woman comes to torture her, things go down quite differently. The woman begins "feeding" Matsu, pouring scalding-hot Miso soup on her back, ladling it on in measured, sadistic spoonfuls. Matsu doesn't let even a whimper escape her lips, but endures the pain until her tormentor is standing directly on the very same wet blanket, which has been covering her since the previous day. When the time is right, she jerks her body, and shifts the blanket out from under the woman's feet. This sends her reeling backwards to the floor, the boiling pot of Miso spilling all over her face and torso.

Cancer, which is Cardinal Water, sticks very close to the emotional source. Like the crab of its namesake, it lives right by the water. It protects what it loves by building up defenses, and by obscuring it from view. But scorpions don't live anywhere near the water. They live in the desert, where survival is much more difficult. Scorpio, then, is carrying the same water - the same devotion to a love - through a harsh, unforgiving terrain. And living in that world means protecting the water by any means.

A scorpion will hide, lying in wait for just the right time to poison its prey. Stealth and poison are contrary to what most perceive as honorable combat. But if the scorpion doesn't resort to these methods, it will die. Likewise, if Matsu hadn't taken her one chance to lash out, she might have been tortured to death. And whether she has to endure a burn, a kick, a scratch, a bite, or merely the monotony of a long-term prison sentence, Matsu will wait for the perfect time to carry out her work.

It is worth noting at this point that the word "matsu" can literally mean "to wait." While we're at it, it is worth noting that "Nami," her given name, can mean "wave." "Waiting Wave," eh? Sounds kind of like Fixed Water to me.

Virtue Behind the Venom

From here, we get some flashback exposition: Matsu is in prison for attempted murder. The man she tried to murder was her lover, the villainous police detective Sugimi. Having seduced Matsu, he used her as bait in a sting operation, letting her walk into a yakuza stronghold all alone, where she was raped and almost killed. Waiting for the gangsters to be occupied with Matsu, Sugimi then burst in and arrested them, adding rape to a charge of racketeering.

Unlucky/in love.

Of course, some of the yakuza's dirty money gets "lost" on the way to evidence. When Sugimi offers Matsu a fraction of the money as a reward for her role in the sting, she turns on him, and attempts to stab him on the street. This lands her in jail, where she vows to escape and take her revenge.

Scorpio represents water in its fixed state. It is goal-oriented emotional intelligence which that do whatever it must to get from Point A to Point B. Like a river, it will curve and wind around any obstacle, usually ignoring the direct approach in favor of subtlety. And although Matsu's infamy grows among the prisoners and the guards, no one can be sure that she has done anything at all. After all, how does a woman who has had all of her limbs bound manage to burn an inmate with Miso soup? More incidents follow, until her name is one that cannot be uttered without conveying the severity that her actions imply.

Like the scorpion of her namesake, everyone stays away from Matsu (except for her Piscean friend, Yuki, whose hazy identity is supplemented by her devoted compassion.) Also like the scorpion, everyone wants to crush her. This is the effect of terror, one of Scorpio's favorite weapons.

The other inmates not only fear her, they also hate her for evading retribution, and look for any chance to take her down a peg. The warden knows she has some connection to an incident which has caused him to be disfigured, and vows to break her. And Sugimi, fearing her eventual wrath, has commissioned an assassin within the prison walls to ensure that Matsu has an "accident" of her own.

Parasite Porno

In an effort to find out Matsu's true involvement in the various acts of havoc around the prison, the warden throws her into solitary confinement once again. But when Matsu looks around the cell, she finds that she is not alone - another inmate sits at the other side of the room. Although it remains unrevealed at this time, the woman is actually an undercover police operative who has been sent to pump her for information.

The pretty young officer, under the guise of being a fellow inmate, attempts to question Matsu on the nature of her infamy and involvement in the recent unrest. Matsu sees through her ruse easily, coolly stating, "You talk too much." That's when the fan service begins.

Good, that's good. Now smell her a little.

Matsu begins to tenderly, but relentlessly, seduce the young woman. Even when the woman pushes her away, telling her to stop, Matsu continues to caress and undress her. Soon, the woman's pleas fade, replaced by moans of pleasure. Hot, right?

Sort of. But what follows isn't really the saxophone-and-light-jazz sort of lesbian scene we've come to expect from women in prison flicks. It looks more like something you'd see on the highlights from The Discovery Channel - Matsu isn't just sexing this girl up, she's consuming her.

Venus, the planet of love, is not very happy in Scorpio, where it is in one of its two detrimental positions. It doesn't understand Venusian subtlety. So when a Scorpio makes love, it can look like an act of consumption in the wild. Which, if you're into that, is pretty cool. And since Scorpio is ruled by Mars, it is no surprise that Matsu is less interested in gettin' her fingers into this chick's honeypot, and more interested in the inherent tactical advantages.

When the young officer reports back to the warden, she comes empty-handed, having obtained no useful information. He thanks her for her bravery and service, and tells her she is dismissed. But she protests, begging hysterically to be put back into prison, claiming that Matsu is close to cracking. Seeing things for what they are, the warden rips her shirt open, revealing a shotgun pattern of hickeys and bite marks. As she is dragged from the room, the young woman still begs to be put back into confinement with Matsu.

Hot Scorpio Lovin'.

Scorpio is associated with vampirism. Since Scorpio is a creature which is associated with the fixed exchange of energy, Scorpio sexuality may manifest in the form of tantric love. Here, the two partners give and take equally, truly sharing of each other's essence. Not so with the vampyiric Scorpio. They take everything, give nothing, sustaining themselves on their partner's energy while alternately putting them under a mysterious, sexy spell. In this scenario, Matsu has used her sexuality as a weapon, and the young police officer has fully succumbed to her influence. Tricked, trapped, hypnotized, and disgraced - this is just another way that the scorpion can sting.

La Mort dans La Maison de Dieu

Most everyone in the prison has grown to hate and resent Matsu for her actions. Sensing this, the warden constructs a crude plan to destroy her.

He has all the women led out to the yard, surrounded by armed guards, and instructs them to start digging. When they have dug to his satisfaction, he tells them to refill the holes. When the holes are filled, he has them dig again. And so on.

He says that this will continue until those responsible for his disfigurement come forward to accept punishment. No one does. When the group is told to stop and come inside for the night, Matsu is told that she must stay and continue alone. The other inmates refer to this as "The Devil's Punishment."

Eventually, the plan backfires: while women are fed up with taking abuse for Matsu's sake, they end up taking it out on the guards in a fit of rebellion. They rise up with their shovels, get ahold of a few guns, and capture a handful of guards, holing up in a nearby warehouse.

Mars is represented in the Tarot as The Tower, or The House of God. The card depicts a great fortification being shattered by a bolt of lightning, one that bears a striking resemblance to the tail on the Scorpio sigil. It signifies institutions - like this prison - whose use has been outlived or surpassed by the egos of those in charge. In other words, the institution is supposed to exist to serve the greater good, but the heads of the institution believe that they themselves are the greater good. And so, it must be destroyed so that the divinity it houses may be reallocated to a more appropriate place. Obviously, you don't want to be in the tower when this happens. Matsu, like that lightning bolt, has sent an ineffective institution crashing down, just by the nature of her existence.

Militant/feminine.

The uprising is eventually brought down, but not before many are killed – both inmates and guards. Among them is Yuki, Matsu's only friend, who fulfills her Pisces-as-martyr role by jumping in front of a series of bullets that are meant for Matsu. The one behind the trigger is the inmate who has been tapped by Sugimi to assassinate our Scorpionic protagonist. Needless to say, she is dealt with severely, and Matsu takes advantage of the abounding confusion to escape.

Death Wears a Pretty Hat

Scorpio is represented in the Tarot as Death. The card portrays a skeletal rider, clad in black armor, riding a pale horse, destroying all living things in its path. Kneeling before its grim countenance are a pleading holy man, a woman who has resigned herself to fate, and a child who stares on in wonder. Rich or poor, young or old, saint or sinner, no one escapes. The rider's forward march is absolute and unrelenting.

This is the very image that Matsu conjures as she stalks through the night-time streets of Tokyo, finally free. Clad fully and elegantly in black, only a glimpse of her pale face escapes from the wide brim of her hat. Apparently, Sugimi has enjoyed a number of business partnerships with the dirty money he has stolen. She tracks down each and everyone one of his partners, stealthily knifing them in crowded public settings. Before they can even cry out, before they finger her for their murder with a dying breath, it is too late; she has disappeared.

Why knives? Because a knife doesn't make any noise. A knife can be easily concealed. I've never been stabbed or shot, but it seems to me that the former would be more psychologically damaging, and that's how Scorpio likes it. A gun is Sagittarian; it can kill from across the room or from a hundred yards away. You have to be up close with a blade – it's a personal violation, and a parallel to the sharpened tail of the scorpion.

In the film's climax, Matsu has cornered Sugimi in an elevator, but hesitates in completing her vengeance. Perhaps she still has some feelings for him, or perhaps she falters because killing him is the only thing she has lived for. In any case, her hesitation costs her the element of surprise, which is key to the Scorpio's attack. A brief struggle and a roof-top chase ensue. Here, in the daylight, Matsu's black garb seems to stand out more – she is less threatening, more desperate. Like any dark mystery, she loses power when exposed. But not all of it.

This is why Batman sticks to dark alleys.

Scorpio won't just give up because its master plan has failed. It is a war sign, after all. When all of its tricks, poisons, and subterfuge have been stripped away, it'll just come at you. And that's what happens here, as Matsu rushes Sugimi, impaling him on the end of her blade. She stabs at him furiously until she is sure that he's dead.

The final reel of the film shows Matsu back in prison for murder, looking very pleased with herself.

A happy ending.

The theme song to this film is "Urami Bushi," loosely translated as "Revenge Blues." It was borrowed by Tarantino (who clearly drew inspiration from films like this) as a capper to his revenge epic "Kill Bill." A selected lyric...

"I cannot die before I fulfill my fate,
And so I live on, driven only by my hate,
A woman's life is a song,
A song of vengeance."

Boys, watch out for those Scorpio girls.

While we're at it...girls, you watch out for those Scorpio girls, too.

The trailer.

WARNING: boobies, butts, hyperviolence, lesbianism. You know, all the good stuff. ALSO WARNING: Trailer gives everything away. But if you've gotten this far, then it's already been spoiled, so you might as well..

Copyright Nerdcore Astrotypes, 2007