A part of the pink explosion in the early 90s, actor/director Hiroyuki Kawasaki engaged in numerous exploits in the genre throughout the decade which saw him develop numerous well-received efforts in this style. One of his most popular titles, Kôshoku kunoichi: Aieki-zeme or what became known as Ninja Pussy Cat, spawned an endless series of direct-to-video female ninja films based on the characters from this film with the unrelated Lady Ninja Kasumi and Lady Ninja Kaede films.
It’s the Fuma Village in Japan, 1580. A famed ninja gets killed by the evil Hattori Hanzo (Takahiro Nomura, from “Naked Ambition 2”) after he discovers that the local shogun and his son aren’t related. It’s up to his nubile and innocent virginal daughter Kaede (Mashiro, from “Peeping Sleepover”) to exact revenge on Hanzo and his mistress Toki (Yôko Satomi, from “Female Prisoner No. 701: Sasori”) for bumping off her dad. Kaede learns various lethal sexual martial arts techniques in order to accomplish this particular goal.
For the most part, this is a decent enough kuniochi effort. By managing to mix together the martial arts from the samurai films with the erotic with all the sex on display, ‘Ninja Pussy Cat’ offers up something for fans of both styles. By endowing the martial arts with a fair bit of erotica in how it’s adapted from traditional techniques, the film brings about a rather stylish air during these sequences by switching around typical practices. By having Toki train poor Kaede in the ways to kill her master with sexual attacks, this one provides opportunities for them to play with each in sexualized manners within the confines of the martial arts movie. This comes into play nicely later in the movie where we learn that the techniques are all apart of Hanzo’s plan to eliminate his enemies in a different manner than expected, providing the film with a strong finish.
It also doesn’t hurt that the film capitalizes on its two leading starlets. With Mashiro giving a strong performance as the innocent Kaede, she comes off as very appealing in her naivete throwing her revenge into jeopardy. Granted plenty of screen time to showcase herself in both lesbian and straight scenes, these come off with far more erotic charges than the other scenes in the film, making her a real standout. It’s quite easy to see why she became a major star in this subgenre following this film. Toki comes close to stealing the film with a fantastic performance as well. Her icy cold nature and sensuous performance are greatly appreciated, and the numerous scenes of her performing with her various captors are quite appealing leaving several steamy scenes in her wake. Especially memorable is their training session together, which is a fantastic mixture of erotic and somewhat torturous tactics.
However, beyond these factors, there isn’t much here. The pacing is incredibly glacial, hampered by Ribon Kawasaki’s script which doesn’t make any sense as to what’s going on. The whole quest for the secret of the emperor’s true lineage isn’t spelled out at all so the entire plot but Hanzo and his side doesn’t make any sense, leaving his side of the film rather limp. Likewise, the rather typical revenge plot gets trotted out once again here, leaving this one with no real surprises by the time Kaede finally unleashes her ultimate goal. That forces this one to rely on the sexuality as well as the martial arts action to carry itself along, and while the sexuality works the martial arts look rather clumsy.
Overall, this is a pretty solid and enjoyable outing. Fans of the other kuniochi titles that followed will certainly be interested in this one, while fans of more cohesive offerings might not find this one as engaging due to its other efforts and find it a bit of a chore to get through.
Review by gorelord84 on Asian Film Vault.
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