Prison Movies

Hellcage: Inmate 611 Part 2 (2007, Japan)

Fans of Akira Kiuchi have every right to feel cheated. Kiuchi plays Sayaka Mizschima – the Inmate 611 of the title – but gets to say, by my reckoning, just six words (maybe fewer in Japanese) in the entire film (‘Five’ when counting off, ‘M’am’, ‘No, m’am’, and ‘I’m terrible’ when asked about her ping pong prowess). There is way more ping pong than Sayaka.

While Part 1, Hellhole: Inmate 611, featured Sayaka’s story, this sequel, or second part, turns its attention to her cellmate Reika (Harumi Nemoto), who answers to Inmate 48 when spoken to, but on being asked to state her name and number at her parole hearing says, “No.42, Reika Wada.” The film would accordingly be more properly called ‘Hellcage: Inmate 42 or maybe 48’.

Reika made the mistake, on being released from prison on the last occasion (after serving a sentence for ‘stimulants’ abuse), of taunting and abusing the prison’s nastiest, most vindictive guard, Keiko Mikawa (Jaguar Yokotu), outside the gate. Do that and you have to be pretty sure you’re not coming back. Reika starts out sort of OK. She avoids drugs and gets a job with her friend Eri (Ruka), as a hostess girl in a bar. We see her entertain the wealthy Ando (whom Sayaka later stabbed in Hellhole), and the Warden and head guard of the prison from which she’s just been released – eventually having sex with the Warden (who doesn’t recognise her) – and then refusing his money to keep it quiet but insisting that one of her friends gets parole. That sounds better than blackmailing him… These scenes are played chiefly for laughs in Hellhole and are repeated here, again as a humorous interlude but later assuming a little more significance.

Anyway, her friend Eri dies from an overdose and the innocent Reika and her not-so-innocent ex-boyfriend (and Eri’s current boyfriend), Masatoshi Goto (Wataru Seihodo), get pinched with possession or supply of the  drugs – the evidence for which is not so clear. Both go to prison. Reika does well as the leading hand in the prison’s flower packing industry, until she becomes eligible for parole. Masatoshi, who was released from jail much earlier than her, sneaks into the prison as an employee of the flower packing company, and the spiteful Mikawa catches them talking. She immediately throws Reika into solitary and throws her hopes of parole into chaos… despite the Warden’s self-interested advocacy on her behalf.

Like Hellhole, it’s hard to stay engaged with this film. Reika’s story (and Mikawa’s revenge) is perhaps more interesting than Sayaka’s, but the prison scenes lack imagination and the film is again punctuated by lengthy, formulaic, whimpering, underpants-on sex scenes. And in case the jail talk and plot are not sufficiently inane or tedious we are asked to endure several scenes of prisoners ineptly playing an intra-prison table-tennis tournament while Reika reflects on her misfortune and fate.

This is another shocker and with the Hellhole and Hellcage double feature it is a case of the whole being barely the sum of just one of its parts.

Also known as Female Prisoner 611: Revenge of Evils and Joshû 611: onna-tachi no gyakushû

Posted on June 26th, 2016 at 1:49 pm. Updated on June 26th, 2016 at 1:49 pm.