Above is a rare poster for a 1971 Japanese film entitled Kawaii akujo, known in English as The Lovely Wicked Woman, or sometimes The Lovely Bad Woman. You won’t find any info about the production online under the English titles because for some reason all the movie databases we consulted referred to it as Cute Vanity Fair. But trust us, this poster doesn’t say “cute vanity fair”, and we seriously doubt the movie was ever released in the West under that highly dubious title. It actually says "cute villain," and it wouldn't have been released in the West under that title either. Anyway, whatever you call the film, it was directed by Inoue Umetsugu and starred Bunjaku Han in a story of murder and intrigue centered around a tabloid newspaper. Han appeared in about twenty-five movies, including the classic pinku serial Stray Cat Rock, and starred on television scores of times before dying prematurely in 2002 at the age of fifty-four. We’ll have a bit more on her later.

Nora-nekko rokku: Sekkusu hanta, aka, Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter is the third installment of a Nikkatsu Studios-produced pentology of loosely connected Stray Cat Rock films. This one attempts to address two real world issues: the notorious Japanese penchant for racism, and Japanese resentment concerning the post-war occupation of their country by American troops. Meiko Kaji and her friends, who comprise a girl gang called the Alleycats, run afoul of a J-supremacist street gang called the Eagles when one of the Alleycats refuses to betray her half-Japanese/half-black boyfriend. Parallel to this, Meiko finds herself drawn to another mixed race boy who happens to be in town searching for his missing sister. The leader of the Eagles, twisted by the traumatic memory of his sister’s rape at the hands of American servicemen, goes fully bughouse insane over all this race-mixing and decides to solve it by embarking on a citywide rampage against anyone he thinks isn’t pure Japanese. As usual, we won’t spoil the film by giving a full synopsis. Find it, rent it, watch it, love it, and then go bash some racists. It's good clean fun. Nora-nekko rokku: Sekkusu hanta opened in Japan today in 1971.