Female Prisoner Scorpion: The Complete Collection

[domino harvey]

UK Release Date: 25th July 2016
US Release Date: 26th July 2016
Region: A+B / 1+2

Starring the iconic and beautiful Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Stray Cat Rock) in a role that came to define her career, the four-film Female Prisoner Scorpion series charts the vengeance of Nami Matsushima, who assumes the mantle of "Scorpion," becoming an avatar of vengeance and survival, and an unlikely symbol of female resistance in a male-dominated world.

Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion introduces Nami, a gullible young woman unjustly imprisoned, who must find a way to escape in order to exact revenge upon the man who betrayed her. The visually avant-garde Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 sees director Shunya Ito and star Meiko Kaji re-unite as Nami and six other female convicts escape prison once more. The Gothic horror-inspired Beast Stable finds Nami branded public enemy #1 and on the run. She soon finds refuge with a sympathetic prostitute, but runs afoul of a local gang. The final film in the series, #701's Grudge Song (from director Yasuharu Hasebe, Retaliation, Massacre Gun), shows a gentler side of Nami as she falls in with Kudo, an ex-radical suffering from physical and psychological trauma caused by police torture.

Spiritual kin to Ms. 45, Coffy and The Bride Wore Black, the Female Prisoner Scorpion is the pinnacle of early 1970s exploitation cinema from Japanese grindhouse studio Toei, and one of the greatest female revenge sagas ever told.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

Limited Edition Blu-ray collection (3000 copies)
Brand new 2K restorations of all four films in the series presented on High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD
Original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays) for all films
Optional English subtitles for all films
Double-sided fold out poster of two original artworks
Reversible sleeves for all films featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan
Booklet featuring an extract from Unchained Melody: The Films of Meiko Kaji, an upcoming book on the star by critic and author Tom Mes, an archive interview with Meiko Kaji, and a brand new interview with Toru Shinohara, creator of the original Female Prisoner Scorpion manga

FEMALE PRISONER #701: SCORPION

Newly filmed appreciation by filmmaker Gareth Evans (The Raid)
Archive interview with director Shunya Ito
New interview with assistant director Yutaka Kohira
Theatrical Trailers for all films in the series

FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION: JAILHOUSE 41

Newly filmed appreciation by critic Kier-La Janisse
Japanese cinema critic Jasper Sharp looks over the career of Shunya Ito
New interview with production designer Tadayuki Kuwana
Original Theatrical Trailer

FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION: BEAST STABLE

Newly filmed appreciation by critic Kat Ellinger
Archive interview with director Shunya Ito
New visual essay on the career of star and icon Meiko Kaji by critic Tom Mes
Original Theatrical Trailer

FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION: #701’s GRUDGE SONG

Newly filmed appreciation by filmmaker Kazuyoshi Kumakiri (Kichiku: Banquet of the Beasts)
Archive interview with director Yasuharu Hasebe
Japanese cinema critic Jasper Sharp looks over the career of Yasuharu Hasebe
Visual essay on the Scorpion series by critic Tom Mes
Original Theatrical Trailer

Rating: 18
Region: AB/12
Duration: 353 mins
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: Mono
Colour
Discs: 8
Cat Number: FCD1338

[beamish13]

Whoa. These are great. I'm very fond of Jailhouse 41, which has only been available in an absolutely atrocious letterbox disc from Image.

[Ashirg]

Whoa. These are great. I'm very fond of Jailhouse 41, which has only been available in an absolutely atrocious letterbox disc from Image.

Jailhouse 41 came out in 2010 with a better transfer from Eastern Star/Discotek Media. Of cause, this release is going to better that + all those Tokyo Shock discs. I hope New Female Prisoner Scorpion double feature from 1976-1977 is getting released as well for completeness sake and because they never had official English-friendly releases.

[Paul Moran]

Another blasted double dip! It's only 4 years ago that I bought the Eureka DVD set (Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion; Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41; Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion: Beast Stable). Still, it only cost £8 (say $12), and Arrow are including a 4th film. And, of course, I expect an enormous improvement in PQ from an Arrow Blu-ray!

[Graham]

Will these be released individually down the line?

[Perkins Cobb]

Aspect ratio in the specs above is just a mistake, right? These should all be 'Scope, I believe.

[MichaelB]

Having just taken delivery of the masters, I'm very happy to confirm that this is indeed the case.

[Calvin]

Arrow might want to prepare themselves for some backlash on the colour grading

[tenia]

Arrow might want to prepare themselves for some backlash on the colour grading

So it sadly wasn't only the trailer. Might be another case of Lady Snowblood color-grading. Interestingly, the Female Prisoner movies are with Toei while Lady Snowblood are Toho so that's not that.

[EddieLarkin]

I think they look great. I think Lady Snowblood looks great. I think Fantastic Planet looks great. All look far better graded than their DVD counterparts. I'm so bored of this same old shit.

[domino harvey]

I think they look great. I think Lady Snowblood looks great. I think Fantastic Planet looks great. All look far better graded than their DVD counterparts. I'm so bored of this same old shit.

Found Jean-Pierre Melville's ghost

[EddieLarkin]

Maybe this all started with Le cercle rouge and L'enfance nue... I think the hyperbole got worse everytime after that.

[R0lf]

Colour is such a huge part of these releases why is anyone making excuses for terrible two tone transfers?

For an extreme example of this try watching the Twilight Time release of THE BEST OF EVERYTHING where everything is brown and navy blue! It absolutely destroys the picture and makes it extremely hard to watch.

(And obviously I am still bitter about Arrow's appalling Fassbinder set.)

[tenia]

I dont know if these new gradings are faithful and am wondering if they were done by Arrow in-house or by Toei themselves.
But this looks... rather extreme.
But I'm among those who thinks the Criterion Lady Snowblood color grading is too extreme so...

[dwk]

Tenia, I think you are wrong about Criterion's Lady Snowblood, it has an appropriate range of skin tones and colors that are natural, the whites are not overly red/blue/green (save the day for night shots that, if I remember correctly, were not properly timed in the previous HD master.) The only issue is there is a little black crush at times, but that is a side effect of its source, a 35mm low-contrast print (the info just isn't there in the blacks, but the trade off is a 35mm low-contrast print essentially gives you the look, both color and contrast, of a theatrical print.)

Having said that, these new transfers of the Sasori films definitely look too teal. (And for the record, I tend to think that the outrage over color in new transfer is almost always overblown.)

[subliminac]

Is there any consensus as to the best DVD release of these films? I'm not at all happy with the look of these remasters (I've yet to see a Japanese film of this vintage with that kind of color grading, something has to be off) and am looking for some alternatives.

[David M.]

Arrow used low-con prints (what they were given by Toei); my understanding of this is that since they're a few generations away from the OCN, there's very minimal room for the colorist to make changes. The look is already present in the material.

[Orlac]

Is it a case of the colour changing with age - like how some prints now are pink?

[Adam X]

Further to David M's comment, here's Arrow's official statement.

[domino harvey]

Props to Arrow for actually addressing this with a statement

[EddieLarkin]

Pfft, knew it [-(

The suggestion that new restorations of classic films are deliberately timed teal to appeal to modern audiences is, in a great many cases, a complete myth.

[tenia]

Yes, Arrow has been quite quick to issue a statement (which actually most likely only is what is printed in the booklet), it's not even out yet ! It's just one reviewer with check discs !

I guess they don't want a most-likely-expensive-to-licence boxset get slowed down because of such debates.

[Orlac]

I suspect someone at Toei slapped a tint on the video transfers.

[Cold Bishop]

Yeah, I love Arrow, but I find it impossible to believe that the color scheme in some of those more stylized compositions is anywhere near right. The shot of the inmates in the forest clearing, in particular, just looks sickly and off-the-mark.

[swo17]

I suspect someone at Toei slapped a tint on the video transfers.

But this goes against David M.'s explanation.