tlavideo.com

Review

With an early ‘70s, low-budget film so religiously focused on breasts, gambling, pick-pocketing, tattoos, bloody swordplay, murder, guns, sex, revenge and breasts, it is remarkable that the singular reaction upon viewing Sex & Fury for the first time is how stunningly beautiful a movie it is. This is not to say that Sex & Fury does not contain the trademark qualities of your typical sexploitation, i.e. simplistic screenplay coupled with over-the-top acting, less-than-realistic gore, cheesy Westernized soundtrack, etc., but that these qualities more provide a canvas upon which the filmmaker paints a gorgeous work of art.

Sex & Fury centers on the beautiful and deadly Ocho — a sword-wielding, tattooed gambling vixen — played sternly by the queen of the genre, Reiko Ike. Handed the burden of a dying man’s final wish, Ocho becomes tangled in a corrupt web of bad guys who — we soon find — are also responsible for the death of her father years earlier. Needless to say, gallons and gallons of fake blood are shed before our hero’s task is complete.

Along with Lady Snowblood and Thriller: A Cruel Picture (the star of which also plays a deadly gambling spy in this feature), Sex & Fury clearly has had a powerful impact on the filmmaking of Quentin Tarantino. Whether or not it is the homage that is Kill Bill holds responsibility for the recent attention brought to these types of films is incidental; let us all just be thankful that we can finally get our hands on them.

 -- Justin Hallman