Summaries

Synopsis

Maki Hashida (Reiko Ike) attempts to slay Maki Hashida (Reiko Ike) when he goes to a topless go-go bar, but his henchmen protect him well, she wounds a few but is overcome by them. (Credits start rolling.)

Maki is sent to prison, and in the same bus goes a beautiful and happy first-time offender, Natsuko Kimura (Chiyoko Kazama), condemned to 26 months for robbing a motorcycle and injuring a cop in a motorcycle chase (flashback). Two other girls tell their stories (all in flashback): Yukie Nakagawa (Masami Sôda), the pickpocket, tells hers at the sewing mill; Kaoru Ashida (Yumiko Katayama), tells in the recreation yard how she got three years in prison for rape, extortion, and assault... of a john who didn't pay after he had sex with her.

Everything serves the young women to make merry, but not so Masayo Tani (Miki Sugimoto), a gangster's moll, who keeps to herself, apart from the others in the recreation yard. (A flashback shows how she was attacked by men at a gambling parlor, when they deemed she had cheated; they stripped her, exposing the large tattoo of a dragon covering her back and buttocks.) Masayo's eyes cross the the opposite end of the yard, and she stares at the other lonely inmate, Maki. In the evening, when the girls play dice in a communal cell, Maki's silence gets on the others' nerves. Masayo interferes, and tries to impose her leadership, but Maki won't answer even her - who deems this an untenable lack of respect.

In the morning, a duel is arranged in the recreation yard. Inmates not being provided with knives, the two young women face up with long shards of glass in their right hands, and a three yard tether made up of pieces of cloth knotted together, held between their teeth. The piece of rope allowed some distance between them, but not much. The first to scream after a cut, loses the fight. Mika and Masayo are encircled by the prison populace who watch with glee as the two slashed at each other, in silence. Maki is wounded twice, both girls cut each others' arms, but keep holding their grips on the cloth tether with their left hands. Maki breaks her improvised blade. Next, she is cut across the chest, ripping open her prison tunic, and then she loses the small shard she still had, and is cut across the left cheek. Yet, neither cried, nor flinched. Masayo drops her weapon, and lifts up her fists, in a mute invitation to change the weapons. There is a break forced by the guards passing with a group of other detainees, during which the fighters are shielded from the guards by a line of their comrades.

The fighting pair punch and knee each other for a while, then grapple and roll on the ground, until they trample - twice - over a box of white powder [possibly quicklime] that subsequently spreads on the ground, and the girls' bodies, impairing their sight. Yet, they grapple and punch each other in a frenzy. Maki, her eyes closed, keeps punching off target, and falling, and tripping, and falling, and Masayo limits herself to throw Maki down again. A couple of girls tell Maki that she lost, and try to grab her, but she waves her arms around to shove them away, and using the tether for guidance, stubbornly gets back at Masayo. Maki's clothes have been torn so that both her breasts are exposed, and now she clinches with Masayo, and slaps her a couple of times. Maki is so tired that she falls onto her back without moving, and Masayo stops fighting, and looks down at Maki in awe. When, against all odds, Maki stands up after a minute of swoon, her teeth still gripped on her end of the cloth, coming at Masayo for another blind clinch, Masayo lets fall her point of the tether, and says, «You won.» Masayo walks away, Maki delivers two punches in the air, and collapses again, totally spent.

Maki won the respect of every inmate for not giving up, and soon after, she tells them (in flashbacks) what was behind her silence. Maki saw her father's body being recovered from a river by the police, knowing that he had been forced by the yakuza into dealing in drugs; he became a drunkard, and a useless father, but he was her only family; and then she was raped by that gang, too. The other girls reproach her for having tried to avenge her father alone, and wonder why she didn't tell the full story to the police. Maki keeps silent again.Masayo asks, "Which yakuza group killed your father?""Oba Industries.""Oba?""What? Do you know them?""No..." Yet, Masayo's expression betrays her, and Maki was staring at her.

A few years later, Maki leaves prison, and her three best friends - Kaoru, Natsuko, and Yukie - are waiting for her. Maki gives them the cold shoulder, but ends up accepting their company. She tells them that she has a plan, not only to kill Oba, but to destroy him first. She sends Yukie and Natsuko to find out everything they can about the Oba Industries, and charges Kaoru with finding a safe place for them to hide.Maki tells them that they'll meet again in a couple of weeks - while she flies to some island with a U.S. Military Base [Okinawa, not mentioned in dialogue], and makes big money by prostituting herself to American army officers, until she has enough money to buy a box with machine-guns and hand grenades, "lost" in the Army inventory.

Kaoru is afraid of dealing with these weapons. Maki tells her that the Hamayasu clan owned that town until ten years ago, when all businesses were forcibly taken over by Oba and his gang. The Hamayasu clan reacted, and had several clashes with the Oba gang, until they were defeated in a big battle - shortly after Maki had been arrested. Yukie tells of her findings: an assemblyman named Kamejiro Tanno (Hôsei Komatsu), had imposed a truce, just before the Hamayasu gang had been wiped out. The Oba gang has the monopoly of drugs. Yukie points at photographs: Sugai (Seiya Satô), Hayami (Shinzô Hotta), Yabuki (Keiichi Kitagawa), and Ogata (Tooru Hanada). Maki wonders why the Oba gang did not finish with the Hamayasu, but Natsuko adds that they didn't care about their aging Boss, Yasutaro Hamada (Bontarô Miake), who has problems with his only son, Tetsu Hamada's (Takeo Chii), a no-good man, who spends his time at billiards and drinking. The girls agree that a good plan is to set the Oba and the Hayamasu gangs against each other.

Symbolically, Maki picks Ogata's photo from the wall, and sets it afire with her lighter. Maki catches him alone in a rainy night, and stabs him to death. The other girls take her away in a car, and leave Yukie behind to give the alert, and provide Oba's men who appear quickly, with disinformation. Meanwhile, Boss Oba is having sex with... Masayo, nude but for the unmistakable tattoo on her body. He is interrupted by a henchman, who delivers the news of Ogata's death, and brings Yukie in, who plays her character of unwilling witness to the hilt. The men are convinced that Ogata had been killed by two or three men using a car, and leaves... after pick-pocketing the wallet of a henchman. However, she had been seen by Masayo...

The two gang bosses meet, and Yasutaro Hamada promises to investigate if the murder had been commanded by his son. Oba and his men leave in two cars, only to have the road blocked by a construction truck. On top of the truck's cabin, laughing out loud, is Tetsu, who has two men with him. They throw a few large cans of gasoline on the road, and he lights them with two pistol shots. Oba is humiliated, and gives orders to kill Tetsuo. The four girls join him before he goes to see his father. They bring the box with guns, and ask for five million yen. And the girls came armed, to be on the safety side.

Meanwhile, the Assemblyman presents the excuses for the gasoline incident to Oba, plus the promise of a profitable contract relating to an urban development project. That convinces Oba to accept a truce.

Masayo interrupts a meeting of the four ex-con girls, in their secret place. To Maki's amazement, she came just to give advice: "Maki, don't ask any questions. Just get out of town." And at the insistent question, why, she reveals: "Because I'm Oba's woman." Before leaving, she stares Maki eye-to-eye, neither flinches, and it's clear that Maki is still bent on revenge, and Masayo is going to be loyal to her owner [sic] and protector, Oba.

The girls have prepared an ambush, and Maki shoots Assemblyman Tanno, using a rifle with telescopic lenses. His bodyguards in the car are powerless, and never saw the women on top of a near-by building. Oba misinterprets this killing as the end of the truce that was in Tanno's hands, and sends a number of his men to attack and destroy the rival's headquarters. A gun fight takes place between the two clans. The attackers win. The old Boss dies, with his samurai sword in hand, and Tetsu is taken away through a back door by a handful of his men, who survived the massacre.

Oba is pleased with a "job well done". Tetsu is eager to buy more "pineapples" from Maki...

The girls lure a number of Oba's henchmen with their bodies, and dispose of them.

Maki is not successful with her prey, though. While she is in the shower, he suspects her, and takes her prisoner to Oba's headquarters, where she is bound, slapped, and menaced with an electric chainsaw being used on a female card mannequin. With the cutting blade inches from her face, still Maki is not talking. Masayo intervenes, and uses her lighted cigarette on Maki's nipples. Maki screams many times, one for each burning pain on her bosom, while Oba watches. Then, she passes a knife into Maki's hands - tied behind her back - slaps her some more, and Oba decides to put an end to it.

During the night, Oba's bodyguard who had captured Maki visits her in the basement, and cuts her ropes, intent to rape her. Maki forces him at knife point to tell her where and when the drugs for money exchange will take place, and then kills him. On the man's wristwatch, she sees how many hours she has to prepare her next move.

Her three friends attack Oba's men at the dockyard, and mow down a number of them, before escaping with the suitcase with the drugs. Oba learns that a man found dead at the dockyard is Miyamoto (Hirohisa Nakata), an underling chief of the Hamayasu gang, thus he is more convinced that the attack it's Tetsu's doing.

Maki appears, her wounds tended to, and hidden by a design dress, wearing platform sandals, telling him that indeed, she is working with Tetsu, her "business partner". She tells him that she sold the drugs to Tetsu, but she came to Oba because she wants more money - his money. Masayo is present, and the only one who's wise to Maki's plan, but she keeps quiet. Maki demands 30 million yen for the information about where Tetsu and the drugs - worth 300 million - are. Oba is undecided, but Masayo tells him that she thinks the girl is not lying and, "If she is, I'll take care of her." Upstairs, in the office, Maki places the three stacks of banknotes into her large suitcase, and says, "You'll find Tetsu in the abandoned ship at the 13th reclaimed yard."

Oba and his men drive to the indicated place in four cars, and well armed. A first team rushes into the rusty ship, only to find it is empty. Tetsu comes out of a hiding place with his men, from where they dominate the barren land of the abandoned dockyard, and they start throwing grenades at Oba's men. Several go up in explosions. Then, Oba's men hide the best they can, and start shooting back. More men die in the gun fight. Tetsu dies in Oba's hands, but his last words prove that he knows nothing about Oba's drugs...

Maki re-appears, in a new light beige jacket and trousers ensemble, and the suitcase with the drugs. Maki's three protecting angels appear with guns to shoot down the last of Oba's bodyguards, including Yabuki (Keiichi Kitagawa), whose specialty is spitting darts held in chewing gum. Oba is alone, and Maki tells her of her personal grievances against him. She pulls a gun, and shoots at him - six times, each bullet into one of his limbs, and the last two in each side of his forehead.

Masayo steps towards Maki, "This is not over yet".Maki counters, "I knew you'd come."Masayo shows anger: "How dare you make a complete fool of me?" Masayo says she wants the money, as she had been with Oba just for it, the money. Maki refuses.

Masayo had come prepared for this final set-to, with two flick-blades. She throws one at Maki, and opens hers. Maki sets the suitcase down, and opens hers, too. The knife fight starts, and Maki warns her three friends to stay out of it. Maki wounds Masayo's in the right wrist, and she has to drop the knife. Maki - replicating what Masayo had done in their first duel - drops her own knife, and strips her jacket. The two women continue their fight by punching, wrestling, kicking, pulling hair and delivering knee blows. At one point, Masayo falls close to the suitcase, and throws it at Maki's face. The suitcase falls open, revealing a number of sachets, some of which are ripped, and their white powder, drugs, set to waste by the breeze.

[continuity error, betraying a cut scene: Masayo reappears with no jacket] The two fighting women are stumbling onto the sea-shore, and keep trading punches. They return to land, and exchange a couple of punches more, until both drop alongside each other, face up, on the white covered land - duplicating the end of their first duel. Both are breathing hard, exhausted, under the brilliant sun.

Masayo concedes, "You've become a truly ruthless woman. How dare you surpass me? You're like a viper."Maki recognizes, "So then, you're still a rattlesnake? I don't think so. I know you're not easily beaten."They turn their faces toward each other, and they look deeply into each other's eyes.

Yukie: "Cut it out, you two. You've ruined a fortune's worth of dope... Speaking of ruthless women, every woman here is as ruthless as the devil."Kaoru: "Five women like us together could take on the whole world."Natsuko: "There are plenty of thugs left."Yukie: "That's right!"Natsuko: "We'll chew 'em up, and spit'em out."

The three girls walk away with, carrying their weapons. Maki and Masayo stand up with some difficulty, and follow them. [theme song until The End]