Assault! Jack the Ripper (1976 Review)
aka Bôkô Kirisaki Jakku
Director: Yasuharu Hasebe
Cast: Tamaki katsura, Yutaka Hayashi
Mondo Macabro / NTSC R1 / Unrated / Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic) / JAPANESE: Dolby Digital Stereo / English Subtitles / 74 minutes / Purchase from DiabolikDVD.com
Apparently within the constraints of the pink cinema realm, there are sub-genres to tickle every fan’s fanny. Being relatively new to the large and exciting world of Japanese exploitation I am still learning more and more about this intriguing new path of cinematic exploration. From erotic art-house to S&M and bondage, I have now entered the world of “violent pink”. This is the Japanese equivalent to Hong Kong’s extreme Cat III rating and the grimy American grindhouse roughie. With loads of naked flesh and sexual violence, the violent pink is just the fuel that runs Cinesploitation.com and opens new doors to the extreme.
Assault! starts with the new waitress at a restaurant bullies a shy chef into giving her a ride home on a rainy night. Along the way they pick up a female hitchhiker who turns out to be a little strange so they put her out on the side of the road. But the hitcher doesn’t want to leave and she hangs on he car until she falls off and dies. The couple goes back for her and hide the body in a junkyard. Surprisingly later that night they get turned on by all of the excitement and have mind-blowing superhappyfuntime. The next night they have sex again but this time it just isn’t very good. They put 2 and 2 together and decide that it must have been the thrill of the kill that gave them that extra kick the first time.
With their bloodlust spurring them on, they embark on a killing spree to satiate their carnal sexual appetites. But this spree is a lot more personal than accidentally dragging a poor girl to death. Slashing, humiliating, kidnapping and lots of pussy stabbing – and I don’t mean with his meat sword. Soon the killing becomes more than just quality time with his girlfriend and he begins to go out on his own to quell his homicidal needs and this doesn’t sit too well with her. This begins to create a rift between the happy couple until the inevitable showdown ending that stands as one of the most violent, sleazy and shocking endings I have ever seen.
Director Yasuharu Hasebe (the Stray Cat Rock series, Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701′s Grudge Song) has put on a real mean and dirty piece of work here. Although there is absolutely no reference to Jack the Ripper in the movie, the misogynistic similarities of both Jack and the male lead of Assault! are very apparent. Once the shy chef is forced out of his shell by the rude and boisterous waitress, his hatred of women is released like a hungry tiger – if a tiger got off on stabbing chicks in the vagina with a knife. The relationship between the murderers is as volatile as you would expect of two sick, twisted sex maniacs and the two playing the roles sell it with vigor.
NOTE: Forgive me for not knowing the names of the actors. I tried putting names to faces using the interwebs to no avail. The actress who plays the waitress is a wonderful combination of cherub-faced sexpot with beautiful boobs and seething sadist who likes manipulating weak minded men. At first I wasn’t sure if she was attractive with her odd poodle hair but after the sultry smirks and seeing her killer body I was a big fan. Hmmm, I guess I am one of the “weak minded men”, aren’t I? Oh, well, so be it. Boobs are a powerful, convincing thing. The guy playing the male killer is also very strong as the easily duped dormant killer who just drips with hatred. If you are a fan of the most violent of the vile and the sleaziest of the sleaze, you will not be disappointed with this Mondo Macabro release.
Bloody great movie that needs more exposure, because we wanna see more violent pink films released over here, especially the ones by the four devils:Kazuhiro Sano, Hisayasu Sato, Toshiki Sato and Takahisa Zeze.
Seek this film out. You won’t be dissappointed.
Assault! Jack the Ripper is really an eye opener of a film and I hear very few actually top this one. Such a dark tone. Hasebe’s other films, Rape! and Rape! 13th Hour (which I believe are not available English friendly) are other similar violent pink films to track down.
In the meanwhile, although to lesser degree in tone, you need to see Star of David: Hunting for Beautiful Girls immediately and try to track down Female Market (Japan Shock release) and brilliant little sleeper pink film called, Raigyo (released by Redemption films and there’s a boot floating around under the MushiMushi label). The latter is the version I own and can be of assistance if required …
Oh yeah, the smoking hot actress is Tamaki Katsura!
Fantastic recommendations! I may have to hit you up for “Raigyo”. Glad you found the site.
So am I.
Not sure if you’re cool with cross referencing review sites so I won’t post it here. But there is a nice little site I have in mind that runs down a very detailed list on some of the Redemption/(MushiMushi) releases; of which there are eight. Most of are late 90′s early 00′s stuff which aren’t on most people’s radars – a mixed bag, really. They range from slow, moody and introspective (Dirty Maria) to outright twilight zone shit (Tokyo X Erotica) and more importantly, the quality of sex/women also ranges.
I don’t mind promoting other sites as long as it’s not spam. I would love to know the site. I am always looking to broaden my exploitation horizons.
Agree with that. http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/index2.htm is the site.
Redemption/(MushiMushi) titles reviewed as followed (along with a great many other non-pinku gems from Japan):
Ambiguous
Dirty Maria
Lunch Box
Raigyo
Tokyo X Erotica
The remaining three not reviewed are Cuffs, Empty Room (excellent comedy) and Swing.
Oh yeah, there are spoilers …