Eros Schedule Book: Female Artist (色暦女浮世絵師) (Japan,1971) [VoD] - 2/5
A sick artists finds success with dirty paintings he based on sketches done by her wife (Setsuko Ogawa), who in turn was left with a fixation for eros after being raped by a semi-retarded drooling nobility idiot. Passable period film, and director Chusei Sone's debut film. Like many of his early pictures, this one relies on a set of good looking, sometimes unusual (the grittiness of the rapes come as a surprise) images and scenes to carry a film that is not consistently good filmmaking. He did helm some superior efforts though, such as Secret Chronicle: Prostitute Market (1972), before delivering his finest pictures in the late 70s and early 80s (Red Violation, Red Classroom etc.).
Beads From a Petal (花弁のしずく) (Japan, 1972) [VoD] - 3/5
Interesting if uneven directorial debut by Noboru Tanaka, whose background in French literature and poetry is worth keeping in mind when watching his early films. This movie, about a traumatized, sexually frigid woman (Rie Nakagawa in her first Nikkatsu film), is constructed as an allegory for the Japan that was defeated in WWII. The film borders on ridiculous at times, especially when it comes to her treatment in the hands (quite literally) of a doctor, but it's so well shot and edited, conveying an almost paranoid sense of mental insecurity, that it easily keeps the audience on board for 70 minutes. It is precisely the kind of film a young director veering towards arthouse would make when given some money and a condition to do something centring around sex. Tanaka, unlike some others, saw Roman Porno as an opportunity to create unique stories and art within certain confinements.
Afternoon Affair: Metamorphosis (Japan, 1973) (昼下りの情事 変身) [VoD] - 3/5
A young woman (Miyoko Aoyama) earns extras cash working as a prostitute at night, unbeknownst to her family and friends. Another good-ish early film by Noboru Tanaka, and a contrast and companion piece to his debut Beads From a Petal (1972). There's not terribly much character depth for a film that is essentially a character study, but Tanaka shows visual ambition again, creating long scenes void of dialogue (and sex), using only music and images as means of expression. Flowers and colours are used symbolically throughout the film. Attempts at depicting the flow of life in a metropolis via various supporting characters (brutish flower shop owner Akira Takahashi, his wife Moeko Ezawa and brother Morio Kazama etc.) fall short though; their lives are overly sexualized for the sake of adding more (boring) sex into the film.
Happinet will be releasing this film on DVD this year.
When at its best, the film looks and sounds really, really good
Morio Kazama and Miyoko Aoyama
Akira Takahashi
Jitsuroku: Ganso manaita show (実録・元祖マナ板ショー) (Japan, 1975) [VoD] - 1.5/5
The birth of the "manaita show" (strippers engaging in sexual acts with the audience on stage) as presented by junk director Katsuhiko Fujii. Still, it is questionable if this "true account" was based on much other than Nikkatsu's budget and box office calculations. It was yet another film that put the word "jitsuroku" (true account, or docu-drama) into its title, a trend initiated by Toei yakuza films in the early 70s and soon adapted by Nikkatsu (Naked Resume: True Story of Kazuko Shirakawa; Gypsy Rose: A Docu-Drama; Jitsuroku Abe Sada aka A Woman Called Abe Sada etc.). The film stars Yuri Yamashina alongside real strippers doing what they do best. There is one amazing strip dance number with genuinely impressive staging, choreography and music. Unfortunately the rest of the film is a series of dull sex scenes linked with meaningless brief dialogue bits, as one would expect from D-grade director Fujii.
Bridal Doll (団鬼六 花嫁人形) (Japan, 1979) [VoD] - 2/5
A young man falls in love with a woman (Asako Kurayoshi, an actress with very expressive eyes) who has been sold as human doll to an slimebag who is into SM. He responds by kidnapping the slimebag's wife and subjecting her to similar treatment. This is junk director Katsuhiko Fujii's arthouse picture, a melancholic, impressionist revenge movie with occasional surreal visual sequences. Fujii paints the frame in red, cuts to historical past and shows a crucifixion, not entirely unlike directors like as Nobuhiko Obayashi, Shuji Terayama and Shunya Ito. But Fujii could never dream of being in their league, and this film is a superficial imitation with lesser execution and little meaning to the images. Still, it's a bit better than most other Oniroku Dan SM junk. The score is quite beautiful at times.
That's a doll in a horror house, btw.
Love Beast: Flower of Vice (愛獣 悪の華) (Japan, 1981) [VoD] - 1/5
Other than being a sort of come-back series for actress Jun Izumi, who starred in two Nikkatsu films in 1976 before trying a mainstream career with other studios, the Love Beast series is interesting for being crime films within Roman Porno. The follow-up to this movie, the Naosuke Kurosawa directed neo noir Love Beast: Attack! (1981), was rather successful. This opening instalment by workman director Akira Kato fires blanks, however. What begins as a 'yakuza giving heat to a bar owner and his girl (Izumi)' thriller soon turns into 'abducted girl trained for prostitution' boredom. That is, sex, sex, sex. How disappointing.
Virgin nanka kowakunai (ヴァージンなんか怖くない) (Japan,1984) [VoD] - 3/5
The Warriors (or perhaps more like The Bronx Warriors) goes Roman Porno in a punk action gang chase film! Except there is only one gang, and the runaways are a motorbike riding radio DJ who offended a gang member, and a guy who comes to her rescue. It's certainly a unique film in the Roman Porno series, for the main gang alone, which includes a crazed blonde punk, guys in gladiator clothing armed with blades and nunchakus, and two crazy women who look like pro wrestling escapees, all with ridiculous sex drives. Rikiya Yasuoka also appears as a sort of gang godfather. Luckily and unluckily the film was helmed by Hiruyuki Nasu, a trendy but somewhat talentless director with music video sensibilities, one who was never better than the scripts he worked with. The film is a mess with lots of potential; a better filmmaker could have made something really cool with the material. Still, it's a entertaining ride with punk and rock that earns an extra point for its sheer peculiarity.
Bad guys
chasing the heroes
Some some reason I keep thinking of Michael Pare in Streets of Fire...
Rikiya Yasuoka on the left
A guy who escaped from an Enzo G. Castellari set
Ran no nikutai (蘭の肉体) (Japan, 1984) [VoD] - 1.5/5
Roman Porno vending machine Shogoro Nishimura must have been trying to entertain himself with this sex film disguised as a gangster flick. Two small time goons and debt collectors (a guy and a girl) accidentally cause a desperate man to jump to his death from a high roof. Other people living in the house retaliate, causing the guy to run and the girl to seek shelter in one of the apartments. Unfortunately what could've been "The Porno Raid" then turns into a standard sex drama with one girl and too many (outlaw) guys with the hots on her. The gangster stuff adds slight curiosity to it, but is ultimately little more than a minor backdrop. How disappointing.
Seifuku yurizoku - Warui asobi (制服百合族 悪い遊び) (Japan, 1985) [VoD] - 3/5
Cute lesbian schoolgirls in a love triangle! Questionable but functional entertainment by Koyu Ohara, a director capable of going back and forth between roughies and pop flicks. His tender side was always his best side, and that's what puts this film a few notches above the competition. Although the film may have been nothing but an excuse to fill the screen with girls in (and without) sailor uniforms, it's really quite a sweet film with evident sympathies for its heroines. From cute dialogue exchanges ("do you think we're doing something wrong?" heard as best friends Mami Mochizuki and Mayumi Asakura discover girl love by accident) to solid character confrontations (Chie Yamaguchi, delivering an unexpectedly strong performance as a mentally unstable girl in love with an about-to-be-married man, walking into the bride's condo to confess) and plenty of attractive skin, the film somehow achieves the unusual: you start rooting for these girls, and not just to take their clothes off.
Mami Mochizuki and Mayumi Asakura
Chie Yamaguchi in all of the caps below. She's really good as a disturbed girl...
... in love...
...thinking the world revolves around her only
Seifuku niku-dorei (制服肉奴隷) (Japan, 1985) [VoD] - 1.5/5
Potential but disappointingly underwritten dark drama about a high school girl (Mami Mochizuki) who is bullied and sexually abused both at home and in school. There are moments powerful filmmaking, many of which have to do with Mochizuki's performance. She was a young actress with seemingly limited acting talent but good screen presence. In fringe and school uniform, playing an alienated and disturbed teenager, she shared much with the early 2000s Chiaki Kuriyama. This was the last of her only three Nikkatsu appearances (followed by a small role in Obayashi's His Motorcycle, Her Island before apparent retirement). It is too bad the film, helmed by the frequently disappointing Junichi Suzuki, features more sex than storytelling. A missed opportunity.
Mami Mochizuki
