The first film in the series, Rica (Konketsuji Rika), was released by Toho in 1972. This is an interesting reminder that although Toei is the studio most associated with pinky violence the other Japanese studios also dabbled in this disreputable but lucrative genre.
The gimmick to this series is that the lead character is half-Japanese and half-American, as is the actress (Rika Aoki) who plays her.
Rica is a girl with plenty of reasons to be bitter. The reason she’s mixed race is that her mother, a Japanese schoolgirl, was raped by American soldiers during the Korean War. Rica herself was raped by one of her mother’s boyfriends. As you might expect she has a bit of a problem with anger. She’s found a way to deal with this. She finds that committing acts of extreme violence helps.
Now Rica has another problem, and another reason to be angry. She’s the boss of a girl gang and gangsters have raped and kidnapped seven of her girls. Even worse, the girls have been sold into sex slavery to feed the appetites of American servicemen in Vietnam. Being a girl boss she’s going to have to do something about it. It’s a matter of honour.
It all gets very complicated from here on in, with rival yakuza gangs and rival girl gangs and betrayals and strange alliances. Rica gets sent to a Christian reform school but soon escapes. In fact she gets sent to the reform school several times but security is not exactly tight. She makes a bitter enemy, Dragon God Reiko. Reiko is the girl boss at the reformatory but Rica has a problem with any kind of authority figures.
This movie contains all the key pinky violence elements. There’s graphic violence (some very graphic indeed), there are countless rapes, Rica gets chained up, there are full-scale gang fights, there’s a fair bit of consensual sex, there’s prostitution, there are drugs, there’s sex slavery, there are vicious girl-on-girl fights, there’s some nudity. Rica also finds love. He’s a gangster of some kind but he’s a good gangster.
Rica’s world is not a world divided into criminals and law-abiding citizens, it’s a world divided into honourable criminals and dishonourable criminals. Authority figures play very little part in this world and they’re usually corrupt and inept (although the Japanese Christian lady who runs the reform school is surprisingly enough portrayed as quite well-meaning if a little naïve). In this world girl juvenile delinquents usually have a sense of honour. In pinky violence films girl juvenile delinquents are often portrayed as being essentially samurai, living by the honourable code of the warrior.
The main problem with Rica is the lead actress. It’s not that Rika Aoki is terrible. She isn’t. And she does look like an athletic sort of girl. The problem is that if you’re a pinky violence fan you’re going to immediately compare her to Meiko Kaji and Miki Sugimoto and she’s not in the same league as those ladies. She doesn’t quite have their looks, or their acting talent or their charm. Most crucially, she lacks the charisma that Miss Kaji and Miss Sugimoto have in spades. But she’s OK. And she’s quite attractive, but not in an obvious sex kitten way.
Rica also lacks the visual inspiration of the better pinky violence movies. On the other hand director Kô Nakahira can’t be faulted for his pacing. This is a movie that never stops for a second.
Japanese exploitation movies often had political themes. There’s a bit of an anti-war theme here, with American deserters from the Vietnam War treated sympathetically. They’re the only Americans sympathetically treated. There’s a fair bit of bitterness here about the American occupation. On the other hand, while Rica’s mother was raped by an American soldier (and the mother of one of her gang members suffered the same fate) the real anger here is directed at Japanese yakuza (with perhaps some help from corrupt authority figures) selling Japanese girls as sex slaves. The fact that they’re going to be used as sex slaves by Americans does seem to intensify the anger a little but of course that could be put down to nationalism rather than overt anti-Americanism. The important thing is that the political angles are not laboured - this is an exploitation movie, its job is to deliver excitement and sleaze and that’s what it concentrates on doing.
There’s one odd scene of Rica singing and dancing in a night club in a bikini. What’s odd about it is that you expect it to get sleazy but it doesn’t. It could just about pass muster in a Hollywood beach party movie. Incidentally, as was quite common in Japanese exploitation movies, the lead actress does her own singing.
The Media Blasters Rica DVD set includes all three movies on three discs. The anamorphic widescreen transfer for Rica is excellent.
Rica is a roller-coaster ride of sleazy thrills. If you like the pinky violence genre you’ll find it worth your time. It’s not difficult to see why this movie was successful enough to spawn two sequels. Recommended.
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