French DVDs and Blu-Rays of Asian Movies

[Markgway]

I wonder if Tutut has stolen any bandwidth lately?

[gasteropod]

I've heard rumours that he has.

[Tutut]

Corrected.

[HungFist]

The covers are fine. They actually make the films look arty rather than trashy. I don't know mind if that's a good thing for fans.

Actually, some of them are art films. I haven't seen any of these three but from their previous batch Hell Fated Courtesan is pure arthouse.









Almost all of my favourite Roman Porno films are something totally different that one would expect from the genre. Such as

Somai's stunningly beautiful drama Love Hotel, based on Takashi Ishii's amazingly good screenplay. Righfully won the Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Directing, Best Cinematography, Best Leading Actor and Best New Female Actor awards at Yokohama (mainstream) Film Fest.



Koyu Ohara's Pink Hip Girl; one of the sweetest youth films of all time



Retreat Through the Wet Wasteland; one of the best cop films of the 70's, "a foundation for Japanese anti-hero in cinema", and a political handgranade that no mainstream studio would dare to finance



That's just a few examples. There were many directors that were using the pink genre to make artistic, experimental or political films that would not find finance elsewhere. With Nikkatsu the studio only wanted a specified amount of sex scenes, and after that the director could do pretty much what he wanted. Many future mainstream directors started their career by making pink films, including the recent Oscar winner Yojiro Takita (Departures).

Of course, the majority of Nikkatsu's output was crap that could only be considered quality cinema as "sex films". But the genre does also feature many cinematic masterpieces. It's a shame most distributors are just releasing Masaru Konuma crap or Katsuhiko Fujii films for god's sake.

[Shingster]

Many future mainstream directors started their career by making pink films, including the recent Oscar winner Yojiro Takita (Departures).

And Masayuki Suo and Kiyoshi Kurosawa and many more. Yojiro Takita's career is particularly interesting in that he went from Pinku to rather conservative "Yamada-esque" mainstream comedy dramas which usually examined a particularly aspect of Japanese society, to big budget popcorn action dramas and then back to comedy drama with Departures.

[Tutut]

And Masayuki Suo and Kiyoshi Kurosawa and many more. Yojiro Takita's career is particularly interesting in that he went from Pinku to rather conservative "Yamada-esque" mainstream comedy dramas which usually examined a particularly aspect of Japanese society, to big budget popcorn action dramas and then back to comedy drama with Departures.

Looks like it's easier for a director in Japan to switch from porn movies to mainstream movies than in our occidental countries.

I forgot the english titles in my previous post :

Prisonnière du Vice aka A newly Wed in Hell aka Niizuma jigoku


L’Ecole de la sensualité aka Sensual Classroom:Techniques in Love aka Kanno kyoshitsu: ai no technique


L’Eté de la dernière Etreinte aka Wet Weekend aka Nureta shumatsu


Next releases in May will be :

Hong Kong Requiem (Erotic journey : love affair in Hong-Kong) from Masaru Konuma (1973)
L'épouse, l'amante et la secrétaire (New female recruits : from 5 PM to 9 PM) from Katsuhiko Fujii (1982)
Cinq secondes avant l'extase (Time escapade : 5 seconds ‘til climax) from Yojiro Takita (1986)

[HungFist]

Well, these aren't exactly "porn"... none of them are hardcore, and like I said, some of them are not even pink films actually, although all of them were marketed as such.

Like Shing said, many many young directors start their career by making pink films. Yojiro Takita (Departures), Shinji Somai (Taifu Club), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Tokyo Sonata), Masayuki Suo (Shall We Dance), Shusuke Kaneko (Death Note), Akihiko Shiota (Gaichu), Ryuichi Hiroki (It's Only Talk), Yoshimitsu Morita (Family Game)... The genre provides new directors a good change to prove their skills.

Some directors like Tatsumi Kumashiro could have left the genre any time and work for big studios and make mainstream entertainment, but he was more interested in making character dramas and social commentaries so kept working with Nikkatsu in the pink genre. 4 of his pink films are on Kinema junpo's Top 100 Japanese movies of all time list.

If I recall correct, Wet Weeked was quite well received by the critics. I haven't seen it myself. Stars Junko Miyashita, one of the Nikkatsu actresses that could actually act (she was nominated as the best actress by the Japanese Academy Awards a few times)



5 seconds ‘til climax is a sub-par scifi movie by Takita. It has its moments, but it's very sleazy with the endless panty shots.