Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970)

The third film in the Stray Cat Rock series is another stand-alone entry, but with director Yasuharu Hasebe returning it feels closer in style to the original Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss than the intermediate Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo.

Once again a stranger rolls into town and gets caught up in the affairs of a group of female delinquents led by Meiko Kaji, though it is not the same group and Meiko Kaji again plays a different character.

This time around their delinquency is at a higher level, with the girls involved in more serious crime and their Yakuza peers being more organised and ruthless. Rather than an androgynous biker it is a mixed race man who rolls/strolls into town and lights the fuse of trouble.

Tatsuya Fuji plays a suave Yakuza boss who has had issues with the American presence in Japan since soldiers raped his sister when he was a child. He sees Meiko Kaji as naturally being "his girl", so when she shows interest in the mixed race Kazuma his xenophobia ratchets up a notch and his gang start trying to force anyone whose blood is not "pure" to leave town.

Kazuma is a gentle man who just wants to find his sister, but his tolerance just makes him more attractive to Mako, and therefore even more intolerable to the Yakuza - involuntarily setting everyone on a path towards tragedy.

Sex Hunter is a cut above both the earlier films, with a sharper script and higher production values. The cinematography and editing is stylish, closer to what you might expect from Japanese cinema of the early 1970's based on films like Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion.

To the best of my knowledge this is where Meiko Kaji can first be seen in the iconic floppy-brimmed hat that became an essential part of her image following the Scorpion films - paired here with a sharp waistcoat that makes her seem infinitely more stylish than anyone else in her orbit. Her laconic attitude helps to cement the impression of a cool and aloof character whose commanding presence never the less leaves no doubt who is in charge.

Later films would amplify Meiko Kaji's stature and status enormously, we see here the first shoots of the legend begin to sprout.