6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A wandering tough biker girl aids a female delinquent gang in their battles against an all-male Seiyu group over a fixed boxing match.
Starring: Meiko Kaji, Tatsuya Fuji, Hajime Sugiyama, Kôji Wada, Bunjaku HanForeign | 100% |
Crime | 15% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Japanese: LPCM Mono
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: This film is available as part of
Stray Cat Rock: The Collection.
If you're a fan of "happened on this day" trivia, here's a little example, though I'm just a few days late as this review is going live. There was a
(very) little remembered musical that opened almost exactly 53 years ago to the day on October 23, 1967, called Henry, Sweet
Henry, which was based on the charming Peter Sellers film The World of Henry Orient. Though it only ran for 80 official performances, it was ironically one of the more successful
musicals in a disastrous year on Broadway which was documented in William Goldman’s book The Season. Goldman spends an entire
chapter on Henry, Sweet Henry, and while he lays the blame of the failure of the show on critics (one in particular), he also brings up an
interesting datapoint which is perhaps directly relevant to the Stray Cat Rock series of films. The creative staff behind Henry, Sweet
Henry fashioned the show to highlight the talents of a young singer-actress named Robin Wilson, but when the show opened it was a featured
player named Alice Playten who attracted all the attention and who ultimately received the musical’s only Tony nomination in a performance
category.
(Trivia fans will recognize Playten as the less than successful wife whose cooking creates digestive problems for her husband in some old Alka
Seltzer
commercials). At least somewhat similarly, the creative staff at Nikkatsu, reeling (with the rest of the Japanese film industry) from financial issues,
attempted to “guarantee” box office for a planned series of films by fashioning them around singing star Akiko Wada. However, when the first
Stray
Cat Rock film opened, it was actually supporting player Meiko Kaji who attracted a lot of the attention and who in fact went on to arguably
become the “face” of the franchise. The quintet of films attempted to cater to the so-called "youth market", and have a number of cinematic
progenitors, but which might be compared at least somewhat to some of Roger Corman's biker films or even some of the Al Adamson "gang" efforts
from more or less the same period. This is a re-release of an earlier Arrow release which also included DVD copies as well as a booklet, neither of
which are included in this version.
Delinquent Girl Boss is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Since this release does not include an insert booklet, I'm not privy to any verbiage Arrow may have included about the transfer in its prior release of this title. When lighting conditions allow, this transfer offers a nice accounting of the palette, while preserving generally excellent detail levels, albeit within the context of some often askew framings and techniques like the frequent employ of fisheye lenses. The whole series is filled with optical effects, including split screens, and that's the case here, with some resultant degradation in the image. There are noticeable signs of age related wear and tear along the way, but mostly in the form of minor nicks or white flecks. Grain resolves a bit more tightly in the well lit material, but is still often pretty gritty looking, especially in the many dark scenes.
Delinquent Girl Boss features a rather robust sounding LPCM Mono track in the original Japanese. While there is a somewhat narrow, boxy sound to some of the effects (notably some of the roaring motorcycles), the music in particular resonates very well, with nice fidelity and appealing dynamic range. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.
Arrow has packaged this with Delinquent Girl Boss, Wild Jumbo, and Sex Hunter on Disc One and Machine Animal
and Beat '71 on Disc Two.
Disc One
- Yasuharu Hasebe (1080i; 28:37)
- Tatsuya Fuji (1080i; 30:06)
- Yoshio Harada (1080i; 33:06)
- Machine Animal (1080p; 2:48)
- Beat '71 (1080p; 2:37)
Delinquent Girl Boss is an intentionally psychedelic, gonzo outing, and if it never seems to know exactly where it's going, there's often a lot happening on the way to getting there. Technical merits are generally solid, and the supplements, while not bounteous, are enjoyable. Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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