Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion
Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion is a 1972 film from Japan, directed by Shunya Itō, running 87 minutes. reelscum files it under pinky violence and women in prison.
- Year
- 1972 · 1970s films
- Country
- Japan
- Runtime
- 87 min
- Director
- Shunya Itō
- Updated
- 29 Oct 2026
- Obscurity
- cult (44/100)
- Also known as
- Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion · Female Prisoner No 701 Scorpion
Defined in the glossary: Pinky violence, Women in prison
Sold as a women-in-prison quickie. Shot like an art film. Meiko Kaji barely blinks.
Shunya Ito had never directed before and appears not to have been told what kind of film he was making.
The brief was a sukeban prison picture for Toei. What he delivered contains a set that rotates on stage machinery, a colour-shifting flashback lit like kabuki, expressionist lighting cues that change mid-shot, and a lead performance built almost entirely out of stillness. Meiko Kaji has perhaps two dozen lines and dominates every frame she is in.
It is still an exploitation film, and the sexual violence in the first act is presented for an audience that was expected to want it. The film's own attitude curdles against that almost immediately: every institution in it is corrupt, every guard is a coward, and the revenge is total.
Ito's three entries (1972–73) are the ones that matter. What came after him is ordinary.
Trailer
The numbers
Nobody has rated this yet. Be the first to make a claim you'll have to defend.
Your call
Where to watch
Legal options in USA
Links open in a new tab (↗). Availability data via TMDB and changes constantly, so confirm on the service. Legal options only. Checked 7 Nov 2026. All options ↗
Discuss with AI
Open a chatbot with a question about this film already typed out. Useful for a second opinion, plot detail, or where to find a copy.
Written about
- Meiko Kaji and the art of not blinking
Toei hired her to headline prison quickies. She built the most-copied performance in Japanese genre cinema out of about forty lines of dialogue.
The cycle in depth
- Pinku eiga and the rules that shaped it
Pinku eiga is a Japanese trade category for cheap independent sex features, sized for small theatres and shot to fit Eirin's rule on what a body may show.
On these lists
- Better than their reputation
Prosecuted, banned, dismissed or filed on the wrong shelf. All of them are good.
Filed alongside
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable
Ito's last. Kaji drags a severed arm through Tokyo in the opening minutes.
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
Ito's second, and the most formally daring film in the whole category.
Women's Prison Massacre
Late Italian entry. Laura Gemser, and a body count instead of a plot.
Barbed Wire Dolls
Jess Franco's contribution to the cycle. Cheap, delirious and utterly shameless, even for him.
Chained Heat
Linda Blair goes to prison. A sleazy 80s update of the formula, with a corrupt warden and a hot tub.
The Big Doll House
Jack Hill and Pam Grier invent the modern formula in the Philippines.
Black Mama White Mama
The Defiant Ones with Pam Grier, shot in the Philippines by a Filipino who actually knew the terrain.
Reform School Girls
The women-in-prison film as its own punchline, fronted by the lead singer of the Plasmatics.
99 Women
Franco doing the formula early, with Mercedes McCambridge as the warden.
Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom
The title is the pitch. Delivers on it with unusual formal care.
The Big Bird Cage
Funnier and better than the first. Sid Haig is having an excellent time.
School of the Holy Beast
The Japanese entry, and formally the most accomplished of them.