Hazardous Graduation

Junko Natsu stars again in this spiritual (though not strict) sequel to Girl Junior High School: Dangerous Games (1970). Here she is the head of her Junior class girl gang who find themselves at odds with their teachers and administrators. One issue between them is the administration's insistence on abstinence-only sex education. The girls decide to experiment and study the matter on their own. It's played way more innocently than it sounds -- at its most salacious point, a couple girls strip to their bras and panties and try to see (obscured) if they can get a guy in his skivvies to pop a chub. The girls are suspended, and spend their time off spying on their teachers, only to discover that the teachers are a bunch of lechers who have been involved in dirty political deals. The upcoming graduation ceremony promises to be eventful. The goofy wannabe yakuza from the first film is here, too, and his character is about the same as before, though the teachers and the girls' backstories have changed from the first. Again, this is actually pretty innocent, good, clean fun with a lovely, charming female lead. Not as enjoyable as the first film in the series, but it's all good.

Right, well when I sat down to watch this 1970 Japanese movie, I believed I was sitting down to watch an action crime movie, as that is what the movie was listed as here on IMDb. I hadn't heard about the movie, so I virtually had no idea what I was in for here, nor did I have any expectations at all

Writer Gorô Tanada didn't deliver a script or storyline that particularly entertained me. The contents of the story were rather superficial, and I have to admit that I really didn't care about what was going on throughtout the course of the 83 minutes that the movie ran for. I simply didn't care about the storyline, as it had zero appeal to me.

The characters in the movie were caricatures, so they were hard to take serious. And it didn't really help much that the acting performances were dubious and often wooden.

I found director Yukihiro Sawada's 1970 movie to be awkward to sit through and it felt like it ran for 180 minutes and not just 83, simply because there was nothing in the movie that won me over. It was a cringeworthy movie experience, and one I am never returning to watch a second time.

Now, "Joshi Gakuen: Yabai Sotsugyô" (aka "Girls Junior High School Trouble at Graduation") is definitely not a crime action movie, far from it. So don't get lured in on that account, which I happened to be. You will be sorely disappointed.

My rating of "Joshi Gakuen: Yabai Sotsugyô" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.