Say hi to the bad guy. Created and written by Osamu Suzuki, Netflix’s new Japanese-language miniseries The Queen of Villains is about the life and (mostly) fictional crimes of infamous real-life women’s wrestler Dump Matsumoto. Dump was a pioneer whose intimidating face paint, bleached blonde hair, and penchant for bloody mayhem inspired male and female wrestlers alike across the globe to swaggerjack her, and made her a cultural phenomenon in her native land.
Will a biopic series about her rise to the top thrill Netflix audiences in America the same way? THE QUEEN OF VILLAINS : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? Opening Shot : The camera pans slowly across a dressing room table. Amid the scattered make-up, all of it black, we also see weapons — a chain, a fork. They’re all tools of the trade for the woman making herself look monstrous in the mirror: Dump Matsumoto (comedian Yuriyan Retriever), the most popular heel, or bad guy, in 1980s Japanese women’s wrestling.
The Gist: In 1974, Kaoru Matsumoto is a chubby, adorable, dirt-poor little girl (played as a kid by child actress Satoru) who lives with her kid sister Hiromi (Marin Nishimoto) and single mother (Nobuko Sendo) in a one-room apartment. Actually, Kaoru wishes her mom were single: Her freeloading father Goro (Takamitsu Nonaka) shows up every now and then to drink, bully his wife and children, and steal their money. When Kaoru discovers he has not only a second family but also a second daughter named Kaoru, it’s all too .