"Three cheers for director Jamaa Fanaka!"
Steve Puchalski, Slimetime

"This entertaining piece of the 70s is loaded with afros, bell bottoms, good funky music, corrupt cops, a cat fight, lots of swearing, and a character named Big Daddy with a rifle and a turban who gives a speech about the evil white man."
Michael J. Weldon, The Psychotronic Video Guide

"OK, so this ain't Coffy [1973]. This black sister's revenge is nowhere near as cool as Pam Grier kicking major ass and blowing away bastards with a shotgun, but the film is really more of an in-depth look at living in the slums of L.A. in the 70s. At this, Fanaka succeeds, with some superb color on-location photography shot on the streets of Watts and amateurish, but believable actors who seem as if they were cast from the local street corner. Don't get me wrong, this is no lost classic, the script is thrown out the window a few too many times, but it does make a good attempt to be more than your standard exploitation film."
Casey Scott, DVD Drive-In

"Fanaka's films are so brilliant in their absurdity and desire to entertain, it's scary."
Eric M. Harvey, "Hear Ye, Hear Ye! It's Jamaa Fanaka Summer 2007," www.AmericanVulture.com

"(T)he heart and soul of EMMA MAE is Jerri Hayes... What's refreshing about the character is that Fanaka doesn't etch her as a complete naif; yes, Emma Mae is a stranger in a strange land and she is to a certain degree naive but she brings to this new life mad skills and a fierce determination. A UCLA drama student at the time of filming, Hayes (who never appeared in another film) gives a disarmingly nuanced and charismatic performance given the broadness of her playing in the early scenes, in which we see Emma Mae as others do...a cornpone heifer with "bad" hair and a suitcase held together with rope. To his credit, Fanaka never tries to turn Hayes into another Pam Grier; when Emma Mae kicks ass at the end of the film, the blows seem to hit her as hard as her target."
Arbogast on Film

compiled by Richard Harland Smith