This is the most extreme example of "Nunsploitation" I have yet watched, one that will surely offend religious purists; even so, its no-holds-barred attitude actually characterized much of Japanese cinema at the time evoking memories, in particular, of both Yasuzo Masumura's BLIND BEAST (1969) and Toshio Matsumoto's FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (1969). Incidentally, I was not familiar with director Suzuki's work but his stylized, and remarkably confident, approach here is very effective (even if the presentation itself was slightly marred by intermittent combing). Japanese nuns are certainly an unorthodox sight: thankfully, they are given well-rounded characters (the heroine is also quite lovely) though it is sometimes hard to tell one girl from the other! The episodic nature of the plot and its novel (thus most interesting) aspects the mystery tied with the convent surrounding the heroine's ancestry, the presence of a Rasputin-like hedonistic priest (whose eventual come-uppance arrives by divine/spiritual intervention, no less!) and the belated introduction of a white-robed villainess (getting her just desserts in violent fashion after being involved in a bell-tower fight with the heroine!) render the film a bit of a muddle (especially in its dash to tie things up towards the end) yet it proves consistently absorbing, even invigorating, fare. Of course, it would not be a "Nunsploitationer" without moments of violence (the most harrowing and blasphemous tortures see the heroine being wrapped in a hawthorn bush and a 'witch' ferreted out by Inquisition-like methods) and rampant eroticism (involving both heterosexual and lesbian couplings
but, then, even the heroine's induction ceremony is carried out with her completely in the buff!). There is unexpected (and slightly misplaced) slapstick, too, in the scene where a couple of men are clandestinely introduced into the convent dressed-up as nuns so as to aid the heroine in extricating her revenge plan which has them raping the stern (but obviously frustrated) Vice Abbess, responsible for the girl's mother's demise at child-birth, in her sleep!
Review of The Transgressor
