Golf Pro Reiko - More Strangeness From Japan

As ever, I've been watching a whole load of, well, stuff, lately, from 'Billy Jack' movies to Edgar G Ulmer's Beyond the Time Barrier (1960), taking in the likes of The Return of the Blind Dead (1973) and The Unseen (1980) along the way.  But the accolades for weirdness, as usual, go to the Japanese, whether in the form of an episode of something called The Space Giants, (apparently a re-edited and redubbed for US TV version of a sixties Japanese TV series), or another of those 'Sukeban'-style TV series with bad girl protagonists.  Indeed, it was the latter that made the most impression on me.  While the protagonist of Golf Pro Reiko, (the first two episodes of which I recently saw on a streaming service), might not dress in a sailor suit type school uniform, fight crime with a yo-yo or carry a rocket launcher in her backpack, like her eighties TV contemporaries, her adventures are no less bizarre.  Of course, you have to bear in mind that these episodes were in Japanese with no English sub-titles, so there's a lot of supposition on my part as to what was going on.  But, as far as I could discern, Reiko is a teenage girl in, I think, Yokohama, who is on the cusp of being accepted onto the golfing pro circuit when her father, a professional golfer, throws a tournament for money, (I think).  In disgrace, he commits suicide, leaving Reiko and her mother distraught.  Reiko goes off the rails and joins a gang, using her golfing skills in their turf wars with rivals.

Not only does she use her golf club to hit people, but she also puts her swing to good use, teeing off various missiles at opponents and also blazing golf balls.  Her childhood friend, who has the hots for her and wears a suit that looks several sizes too large for him, is forever trying to prise her away from the gang and getting beaten up by them for his troubles.  (He takes an astonishing number of beatings over the course of two episodes, yet seems to sustain no injuries other than cuts and bruises).  Eventually, as far as I could make out, Reiko gets another chance to go pro, but has to go and rescue some of her friends who have been captured by a rival gang which, it turns out, is being led by another old childhood friend, I think.  Anyway, she uses her golfing skills to free them, (more of those blazing golf balls), but is subsequently framed for the murder of what I think was an illegal bookie involved with her father's fall from grace.  Which is where the second episode left off.  I haven't yet sought out further episodes, (most of the twenty plus episodes are, I believe, currently to be found online), so I don't know how it pans out, but I'd confidently predict that the series as a whole charts Reiko's continued struggle to choose between gang loyalty and golfing success.

While not as outright weird as Star Virgin (what is?), or as disturbing as Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs, or even as charmingly bizarre and off-the-wall as Sukeban Deka, the juxtaposition of teenage gangs and golf certainly marks Golf Pro Reiko out as falling firmly in the tradition of Japanese pop-culture what-the-fuckery?  As with series like Sukeban Deka, everything moves at a frenetic pace, accompanied by very serious-sounding voice over narration every so often, (doubtless emphasising, if Sukeban Deka is anything to go by, the moral choices being faced by the main characters at crucial points in the narrative), and lots of opportunities for the heroine to demonstrate not only her bad girl credentials, but also her more traditionally feminine and caring side.  Like many Japanese TV shows and films, particularly those aimed at adolescent audiences, Golf Pro Reiko leaves the western viewer perplexed by the underlying philosophy, attitudes and mixing of the mundane and bizarre side-by side: one moment its a teenage soap, the next a violent gang drama with surreal elements like blazing golf balls.  As always, you are left asking, what were they on when they made this?  Whatever it was, I definitely want some.