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Three Pretty Devils
Movie

Three Pretty Devils

1970 • Unknown

Woke Score
5
out of 10

Plot

A trio of teenage tarts try to earn money through shoplifting and prostitution scams and get into deep trouble.

Overall Series Review

Three Pretty Devils is a Japanese 'Girl Boss' crime comedy from 1970 that centers on a trio of young female con artists using various scams, including sexual blackmail and prostitution, to earn money at the Osaka World Expo. The plot features the women consistently outsmarting and hustling men, framing them as bumbling targets or organized crime villains (yakuza). The film's cultural setting is purely Japanese, and the conflict is between different elements of Japanese society (criminals, yakuza, and the general public), entirely side-stepping any identity politics focused on race or whiteness. Gender dynamics are the key focus, portraying the women as resourceful, amoral, and independent, whose lifestyle is fundamentally anti-family. The movie also notably features a prominent, androgynous performer in a featured role as a nightclub singer, centering an alternative sexual/gender identity as an accepted part of the subculture depicted. The focus is on lightweight crime, music, and exploitation, with no thematic commentary on religion or objective morality beyond the inherent immorality of the protagonists' actions.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The movie is a Japanese production with an all-Japanese cast set in Japan, making modern 'vilification of whiteness' or 'race-swapping' concepts irrelevant. Character success and failure are based on criminal cunning and survival, representing universal meritocracy within an amoral framework.

Oikophobia1/10

The film is Japanese and critiques elements of contemporary Japanese society and organized crime (yakuza). The narrative contains no hostility toward Western civilization, Western home culture, or Western ancestors. The core setting and conflict are culturally internal to Japan.

Feminism8/10

The core of the plot involves the three female leads dominating the men in the story through schemes like sexual blackmail and con artistry. Men are largely depicted as either bumbling, easily manipulated victims of scams or as evil yakuza thugs. The leads are highly effective, resourceful, and entirely independent, living a lifestyle (crime, prostitution) that is explicitly anti-natal and anti-family. The film is a classic 'Girl Boss' scenario within the exploitation genre.

LGBTQ+6/10

The film features a legendary Japanese gender-nonconforming artist, Pūtā, in a featured role as a transvestite/androgynous nightclub singer. This prominent inclusion of a queer-coded or alternative sexual identity centers the presence of this non-normative structure within the main setting of the story.

Anti-Theism1/10

The plot is entirely focused on crime, scams, and survival against the yakuza, with no mention of religion, Christianity, or any transcendent moral law. The characters' amoral actions embody a kind of moral relativism, but the film does not contain explicit hostility toward faith or frame religious characters as villains.