Madame O/Review

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< Madame O
Madotop.png

A female doctor named Seiko (Michiko Sakyô) has been having anxiety attacks lately. Through her narration, we're told that these problems date back to when she was gang-raped by hooligans at an earlier age (Shown in a flashback). As the narration continues, we hear that Seiko's dad disowned his daughter when thinking that it was Seiko who urged the rapists on. Simply put, Seiko can't stand men. In order to ease the constant pain of her panic attacks, Seiko takes revenge on ALL men. In typical praying mantis fashion, what she does is moonlights as a prostitute and lures random men into her house and leads them into their unfortunate fates. While the men are sleeping, Seiko will either inject diseases into the men or leave them sterile. Back at the hospital, Seiko runs into a new doctor, (Akihiko Kanbara) who shows signs of affection towards Seiko. Seiko, in return, gains love for him as well. At this point of the movie, I was starting to doze off, but thankfully a few twists and turns suddenly emerge in the story. Among the new developments involves one of Seiko's victims who tracks her down for his own personal revenge. But wait! There's more to come!

Mad01.JPG Mad02.JPG

Mad03.JPG Mad04.JPG

Since I've yet to see the previous Vicious Doctor film (Also directed by Seiichi Fukuda) I don't know how this particular film stacks up against it. I wonder if it, at least, shares the same visual styles as this one does. Meaning that Madam O has a number of unexpected, full-blown color sequences included. I'm not really sure if this was a trend of Japanese cinema at the time--Since another popular film around this era, Naked Pursuit, which not only features a mix of color and black & white, but also recieved big U.S. distribution as well (Thanks to exploiteer, Radley Metzger) . But Madam O often runs rampant with with the color styles. And the impact of the switching of colors is certainly felt when we witness a brutal attack (Seen in black & white) then followed by what could be the film's most notorious scene (Involving dismemberment) in full bloody color. Aside from the artistic choices, there's no doubt that this sort of scenery was certainly shocking for it's time and possibly goes down in the record books as far as "Envelope-pusihing" goes when it comes to cinematic violence. Madam O has the popular rape-revenge theme that so many of us here at The GCDb tend to be in a hurry to see, but it tends to have a snail-like pace and requires patience to fully absorb. If you're interested to see this matter done in a different way, I would recommend this for a one-time viewing. And though the movie does come alive in it's final act, the film (As a whole) still might not qualify for repeated viewings.

Reviewed by Laydback

Newsletter
  • Grindhouse Database Newsletter
  • Exploitation books
  • Kung fu movies
  • Giallo BluRay