Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981) The Cutest Yakuza Film in Town (Review)

The 1980s weren’t exactly a golden era for Japanese cinema. The masters that put the country on the global stage had either passed away or were in the twilight of their careers, offering the world their final works. Instead, the 1980s were much more of a transitionary era with a new generation starting to make their names, careers which sadly hit a brick wall due to the then-upcoming “Lost Decades” recession stopping Japan in its tracks with a furious vengeance. The only significant dent in the cultural impact of this massive recession came from the unexpected international success of horror movies helmed by the Hideo Nakata’s of the world. Many potential 80s classics became ‘lost’ to an international audience hungry for more – Arrow Video’s latest release, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981) from Shinji Somai is one such title.

This may well be a question I have asked before, but it is no less pertinent: What is in the name of a movie? Well, as it turns out – quite a lot. A name like Sailor Suit and Machine Gun conjures images that would fall closer to the likes of the body horror born from V-Cinema. Movies that saw a young girl mutilated, has a limb replaced with a sword or machine gun and takes it upon herself to wage war on the Yakuza who caused her bodily grief. That isn’t even close to the truth, Somai’s film is much gentler.

In the opening scene, we see the patriarch of a Yakuza family pass away, but before he does, he swears in (as much as he can) the next chairman of the family. The film cuts to teenage Izumi Hoshi (Hiroko Yakushimaru) who is at school coming to terms with the sudden death of her father – the succession goes down a generation making Izumi the boss of a Yakuza family. This is introduced via a group of suited and booted Yakuza foot soldiers standing at the front gate of the high school waiting for her. Turns out, though, that most of that number are bodies hired for the pomp of the ceremony, as the actual gang she inherits is four men strong. After a spell of nerves, she takes up this new calling with her typical wide-eyed enthusiasm marrying two worlds together as her underlings socialise with her friends and teenage boys – if nothing else this is an endearing fish out of water comedy. With scenes of naive teenage boys trying to keep up the pace, drinking with hardened members of the Yakuza, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun Girl is often funny. Well, they are mostly hardened – one later revelation in a lift must’ve courted a considerable amount of controversy.

On paper, this is a gentle satire of the Yakuza film interspersed with episodes of the young girl being undermined at best and at worst, well, it gets dark and extremely unpleasant. Along the road is a missing stash of heroin that kicks off gang rivalries and the emergence of a rather unpleasant gang leader who wants the missing heroine just because it gives him an opportunity to reign over and torture his fellow man. Pretending to have his legs blown off at the knee is just the icing of the cake that is the horrible bastard who goes by “fatso”. If you’ve seen any Hong Kong triad movies, just because he is called Fatso, it doesn’t make him overweight. It’s a weird quirk.

Calling Sailor Suit and Machine Gun either a Yakuza movie or satire is misleading. The satire comes from placing a caring teenage girl opposite the machismo of the hyper-violent Yakuza, a contrast that allows a gentler side of the Yakuza to come to the surface. Satire, as a rule, tends to have a bit more bite and outside of some of the nastier supporting characters – the most fitting adjective for Somai’s film is cute, right down to the leading lady singing the iconic theme song. Its purpose as an antithesis to the gangland movie makes it an ever-interesting prospect, where in Japan the film was so hot it birthed two television series and a spiritual successor movie that dropped in the last few years. Internationally, it is just cute. Now whether Arrow Video’s new Japanese release has any mileage depends entirely on that extended two-hour runtime. Personally, there’s 30 minutes difference between being enraptured by the contrarian ways of this lost 80s Japanese cult classic and finding it exhausting. This live-action Shoujo anime with an occasional harsh edge has an audience, I am not it.

That all being said, I need a print of that box art on my wall.

ROB’S ARCHIVE – SAILOR SUIT AND MACHINE GUN