Hiroku onnaro

Women’s Prison

秘録おんな牢

Release Date: January, 27th, 1968

Running Time: 76 min

Genre: Feature

Color: Monochrome

Screening Format: -,Digital BETACAM

Screen Size: Cinema Scope (1:2.35)

Sound Processing: -

[ Directed by ]

INOUE Akira

[ Cast ]

[ Staff ]

ASAI Shozaburo ── Screenplay
WATANABE Takeo ── Music
TAKEMURA Yasukazu ── Cinematography

[ Production Company ]

DAIEI

[ Distributor (Japan) ]

DAIEI

[ Story ]

The Kodenmacho Prison in old Edo was a hell on earth. In addition to the crowded quarters, the general lack of sanitation, the violence, and homosexuality, punishment was made according to confession-hence suspects were tortured and even killed.
Into the women's section of this notorious prison was sent a young girl, Oshino, suspected of having murdered a man with the help of her foster-father, an old man now dead from police torture. The boss of the cell is Omatsu and it is soon seen that she has it in for the girl.
Actually, it was Omatsu herself who committed the murder, with her boyfriend, before she was booked on an entirely different charge, and it was she, consequently, who told the police that the murderers were Oshino and her father. When she learns that Oshino saw the actual murderer's face she becomes frightened and tries to kill her under the pretext of disciplining her. In addition, she is disturbed to find that Oshino owns an amulet just like the one she lost during the murder.
The younger girl survives, but when the girls are temporarily released she goes to find Omatsu's lover and attempts to kill him. In this she fails, however. In the meantime Omatsu has located her own talisman and then comes to realize that Oshino is perhaps her long-lost sister, since both girls were given the same kind of talisman by their dead father.
So when the boyfriend attacks Oshino, it is Omatsu who stabs him and saves the girl. She then asks Oshino to kill her to atone for the wrong she has done. This refused, she goes to the authorities and confesses to the crime for which Oshino and her father were wrongly accused. Upon discovering Omatsu's true identity, Oshino hurries to the seashore to see her sister for the final time before she is to be banished - never to return.

【Quoted from Unijapan Film Quarterly 1968.11.2】