Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter

Sometimes, it's 2:00 in the morning on a Saturday, and I find myself scouring Netflix for something to watch. At these times, stumbling across a title like "Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter" is a message from the cinema gods: WATCH ME.

Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter, translated from the Japanese Noraneko Rokku, is the third part in a five movie series about a street gang of tough-as-nails girls, led by Mako, played by the legendary cult movie actress, Meiko Kaji. This is the series that made her a star in Japan and cemented her status for the rest of the 1970's.

We open on the gang of girls robbing someone at knife point and celebrating at a bar. They're drinking and smoking and talking about sex, so we know they're tough. One of the girls in the gang challenges Mako, their leader, and they go outside and have a knife fight. Mako wins, of course, and stays behind as the girls go back to their business. While laying outside, she runs into a man. They have instant chemistry, and she finds out he's looking for his sister. She and the gang decide to help him on his quest.

Meanwhile, there's a rival gang of men targeting "halfbreeds", which is never specified, but I think might be people of mixed Japanese-Korean descent.

The plot doesn't matter with this movie, though. What matters is how badass Meiko Kaji is. She's totally awesome. At one point, she's lured away from a party by a man, who tells her he just wanted to get her out of there so his men could rape her gang. Not only that, but they'll blame her for abandoning them. Well, she comes to their rescue, busting back into the party armed with a bunch of Molotov cocktails, firebombing the place.

Meiko Kaji is the heroine of one my favorite Japanese movies ever made, the revenge thriller, Lady Snowblood. It was much of Quentin Tarantino's basis for the story of his Kill Bill series. In Stray Cat Rock, she looks totally sexy and stylish and iconic. I mean, look at her:

She's the one in the awesome hat. Seriously, that hat is amazing! I could write a review about that hat. And the suit too!

As exploitative as that poster and that title look, the movie is actually pretty tame, content-wise. Not much violence, no nudity, or very little, I've possibly forgotten some. There's sex, but not very graphic. Maybe it was enough of a shock in Japanese culture watching women act like this. There's pretty much an entire girl-gang genre in 70's Japanese films. These weren't even the originals.

There's some pretty cool stuff targeting the Japanese youth culture, circa 1970, too. A girl group performs several great musical numbers at the club. The music in general is pretty great.

As much as I'm talking up Meiko Kaji, I didn't think the movie was as great as I'd hoped it would be. I can't tell if it's because it was after 2:00 in the morning and I was tired, but I wasn't as into the story as I would have liked. Also, the fact that it's the third in a series, and I hadn't seen the first two leads me to believe that there were maybe some established ties between the characters that I was unaware of. Maybe I would have cared more if I had seen those first. I might hunt those down in the future.

Still, it was worth watching, if only because I saw Meiko Kaji in that hat! That hat!