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Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (Sailor-fuku to kikanju)

 

  Directed by Shinji Somai

Japan 1981 / Action / Romance / 112 min / Color / Monaural / 2.35: 1  Widescreen Anamorphic / NTSC /  In Japanese with  Optional Chinese and English Subtitles


Hiroko Yakushimaru, Tsunehiko Watase , Rentaro Mikuni, Yuki Kazamatsuri , Kazuo Kitamura , Akira Emoto, Masaaki Daimon

An entertaining mixture of adolescent tropes and yakuza satire, the film features two iconic names of the 80s - director Somai Shinji (Typhoon Club and Tokyo Heaven) and teen idol Yakushimaru Hiroko. Perhaps best known in the West for her role in Fukasaku Kinji's Legend of the Eight Samurai, in Japan Yakushimaru is most remembered for her performance as a schoolgirl-cum-yakuza-boss in Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, particularly the classic scene in which she wields a machine gun in a sailor suit school uniform. Yakushimaru, who is still active in the film industry, recently appeared in films like Princess Raccoon and Always - Sunset on Third Street. Long a cult and art circuit hit, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun experienced a mainstream revival in 2006 when the story, based on an Akagawa Jiro novel, was turned into a TV series starring Nagasawa Masami, Tsutsumi Shinichi Tsutsumi, and Ogata Ken.


High school student Hoshi Izumi (Yakushimaru Hiroko) is just a normal teenaged schoolgirl, except for the fact that her father is a yakuza boss. When her father suddenly dies, Izumi inherits his position as the clan head. Pulled into the wheeling, dealing, and fighting of the mob world, Izumi slowly comes into her own as she leads the gang in search of her father's murderer.