Reiko Ike

Reiko Ike
Born Ikeda Reiko (池田玲子)
(1953-05-25) May 25, 1953
Tokyo, Japan

Reiko Ike (池 玲子 Ike Reiko, born May 25, 1953 in Tokyo, Japan), is a Japanese actress, singer, and entertainer. She is best known for her roles in the genre of action/erotic movies known as pink films. Ike also released an album of songs in 1971, Kôkotsu No Sekai. After a drug-related arrest, and another arrest for illegal gambling in the 1970s,[1] Ike dropped out of the entertainment business.

Life and career

Ike's career was launched with the fourth entry in Toei's Hot Springs Geisha series, Hot Springs Mimizu Geisha (1971). A media frenzy erupted following the release of this film when Ike claimed to have lied about her age to gain a part in the movie. Claiming to have in fact been sixteen years of age when she starred in this softcore sex film, Ike caused a scandal. The publicity only served to make the film one of Toei's most profitable films of the 1970s.[2]

In her third film, director Norifumi Suzuki's Modern Porno Tale: Inherited Sex Mania (1971), Ike co-starred with French erotic actress, Sandra Julien. Eirin, the Japanese film-rating board, objected to the graphic lesbian scenes between the two actresses, and this film had to be severely cut before it could be released theatrically. Ike decided to stop performing in nude scenes after this film, concentrating instead on films in the delinquent girl subgenre of S&M films.[3] Ike starred in five of Toei's seven Sukeban (delinquent schoolgirl) films made between 1971 and 1974. Patrick Macias describes this series as, "bare-chested, shotgun-packing chicks Miki Sugimoto and Ike Reiko getting into one catfight after another." [4] She also starred in all four of Toei's Terror Female High School films made in 1972 and 1973. Ike's later films would include appearances in Kinji Fukasaku's Battles Without Honor and Humanity series and Graveyard of Honor, and the second sequel to Sonny Chiba's The Street Fighter.

Yuko Mihara Weisser calls Ike one of the "icons of Pinky Violence,"[5] and in a review of Sex and Fury (1973), DVDManiacs.net called Ike, "the very epitome [of] the cinematic bad girl, playing her role with a sense of collected cool and tough attitude that can rival that of even better known North American tough gals such as Tura Satana from Faster Pussycat… Kill! Kill! or Pam Grier in Foxy Brown." [6]

Selected filmography

References

  1. Ike, Reiko biography at pinky-violence.com
  2. Weisser, Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser. 1998. Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Vital Books : Asian Cult Cinema Publications. Miami. (ISBN 1-889288-52-7), p.199
  3. Weisser, p.275
  4. Macias, Patrick. (2001). "Toei's 'Pinky Violence'" in TokyoScope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion. Cadence Books, San Francisco. ISBN 1-56931-681-3, p.189-190
  5. Weisser, Yuko Mihara. (2001). "Japanese Fighting Divas 101". Asian Cult Cinema #31, 2nd Quarter 2001, p.50-51.
  6. Jane, Ian. (2005). Sex & Fury DVD review at dvdmaniacs.net, September 28, 2005.
  7. Filmography based on 池玲子 (Ike Reiko) Filmography at JMDB
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