Watch Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable is a 1973 Japanese women in prison movie directed by Shunya Itō. The film is the third in a series of films following Scorpion, a former prostitute who is wrongly accused of a crime and sent to prison. It stars Meiko Kaji as Scorpion and Mikio Narita as a police detective who is obsessed with capturing her.

The film opens with Scorpion being transported to a new prison after her escape from the previous one. She is handcuffed and mostly silent, but her eyes betray a fierce determination. The prison guards are brutal, assaulting and raping inmates at will. Scorpion is no exception, but she fights back with surprising strength and agility. Her fellow inmates, some of whom were involved in her previous escape, admire her spirit and bravery.

The first half of the movie focuses on Scorpion's life in prison, including her feud with a manipulative lesbian inmate named Kayo (played by Yayoi Watanabe). Kayo uses her connections with the guards to bully and control the other prisoners, but Scorpion is too tough to be intimidated. She also forms a brief friendship with a gentle Chinese inmate named Yuki (played by Reisen Ri), who helps her escape briefly during a prison transport.

The second half of the movie takes a darker turn. Scorpion is recaptured and sent to a "beast stable," a secret facility where female prisoners are used for medical experiments and sexual slavery. The head researcher, Doctor Kôji Tsukamoto (played by Fumio Watanabe), is a sadistic and obsessive man who wants to extract Scorpion's ovaries for study. He also has a personal vendetta against her due to her previous escape attempts.

Scorpion is subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of Tsukamoto and his aides, including waterboarding, branding, and electrocution. She also has a disturbing hallucination where she imagines herself as a giant scorpion, tearing her captors apart. Eventually, Scorpion's resilience and cunning allow her to turn the tables on her abusers, culminating in a bloody and satisfying revenge plot.

The film is notable for its striking visual style and intense performances, particularly Kaji as Scorpion. The scenes in the beast stable are especially brutal and unsettling, and there are moments of surrealism and symbolism throughout. The themes of oppression, resistance, and female strength are consistent with the larger feminist and countercultural movements of the time in which the film was made.

Overall, Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable is a raw and powerful entry in the women in prison genre, anchored by Kaji's magnetic presence and a chilling portrayal of sexual violence and medical exploitation. It's not for the faint of heart, but for fans of Japanese exploitation cinema and feminist revenge stories, it's a must-see.

Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable is a 1973 drama with a runtime of 1 hour and 27 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.0.