Any time you get Reiko Ike in a flick, vital fluids will stain the walls. Furyô anego den: Inoshika Ochô, aka Sex & Fury, falls into a category generally known as “pinky violence,” which was conceived and created by the movie studio Toei Company. Like yesterday’s Seijû gakuenaka, this film is a Norifumi Suzuki-conducted symphony of lesbian sex, shock-nudity and hyperviolent action.

Near the mid-point Suzuki treats us to a sequence in which the heroine is surprised in the bath by eight Yakuza, but leaps from the tub and fights them naked. The vicious sword battle spills from the bath chamber into a courtyard, all in wonderfully choreographed slow motion, with arterial spray jetting hither and yon like water from the Bellagio Fountain. It’s one of the most famous and daring sequences in cinema history, and was echoed by David Cronenberg in his recent thriller Eastern Promises.

You may notice that Reiko Ike is upstaged on the poster (and the black-bordered alternate version below) by a bare-breasted Christina Lindberg. Ms. Lindberg is a sexploitation queen who we’ll talk more about in the future. Furyô anego den: Inoshika Ochô premiered in Japan today in 1973.