Fun Japanese counterculture flick where the young women have knives, blowtorches, motorcycles and bad attitudes and they get into the kind of trouble where sometimes somebody dies.
This is the first of the Stray Cat Rock series about girl gangs in the city. When they’re not rumbling with rivals in the streets, they’re out in psychedelic youth clubs where there’s always a band on stage who sound like they’re about to break into “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night”. These lean, mean films (eighty-minute run time here) hold up today as showcases for smoldering star Meiko Kaji (Blind Woman’s Curse, Lady Snowblood) and for their exercise in the Japanese fascination for the West. With little or no changes to the plot or characters, Delinquent Girl Boss could be set in Los Angeles as easy as hot-wiring a car.
The story in this one: the ladies of The Stray Cats cross a bigger, more organized group of gangsters and end up hiding out, on the run and eventually fighting back. Switchblades get flicked, the street lights glitter and Meiko Kaji gets in plenty of her signature intense glares. The other standout star is Akiko Wada as an androgynous, denim-clad biker (everyone thinks she’s a man until she takes off her helmet) who physically towers over the rest of the cast by about a foot-and-a-half. She’s new to the gang, but ready for action.