Bullets 'n' Babes

i think Romero is on a loser with this debate

Yup becuase everyone thinks Rapeman is a normal name and wont put off any normal person if you tell them you watched a film called that, yup I am totally wrong.

Nobody ever claimed it was a normal title. Nor did anyone say it wouldn't put off mainstream viewers. I was only commenting on your claim that we should only watch movies that have titles that please our friends. Or did you mean that? Perhaps that post wasn't related to this conversation?

Romero pictured getting ready to wage a puritanical war on the evildoers

But without the facy hair.

you are Matthew Hopkins reincarnated and i claim my £5

Well £5 back in them days would be millions now

Just came to my mind, not directly related to anything, but thought I might mention it here anyway; when I went to see Ebola Syndrome a few months ago, at least one third of the audience was women (some of them my age, some in their 50's). And Ebola Syndrome is a far, far more disturbing film than Rapeman. I wonder if there had been as many women if it had been Rapeman that played.

EDIT: lol, I forgot to mention it was actually a woman that recommened the Rapeman series to me. And she was definitely more of a mainsteam viewer than a genre geek. I'm not sure how she ended up seeing the films in the first place, though.

Thats the thing with many countries they will automatically not allow a film with that title ever to be released. Rapeman would never ever get released in the UK wit that title, the film would need a name change at the least.

I propose that Dexter be renamed to "Serial Killer Man" - justice through sadistic blood letting.
That wouldn't sell so well either.

HungFist wrote:And Ebola Syndrome is a far, far more disturbing film than Rapeman. I wonder if there had been as many women if it had been Rapeman that played.

In Romero's world all women aren't able to watch rape or have an adult conversation about it, in the real world some women are. For a man who claims to know everything about women there is to know, he doesn't seem to realise not all women (or men) are equal.

Romero's knowledge of the fairer sex reminds me of Gene Hunt, utterly clueless (but he thinks he knows it all). I'm no expert but then I don't proclaim to be.

So is the hero character actually a rapist then or is it just an exploitative title?

In HK you have the popular Raped By an Angel series (and most of those are pretty offensive). I think this highlights the differing cultural attitudes between Asian audiences and western audiences. They don't seem to take the topic of rape very seriously. If I had a dollar for every Wong Jing rape gag I could buy Pespi...

Oh, and I would say murder is a lot worse than rape, Brad. For a start you're, um, dead. Rape is horrible, but at least you're alive. Doesn't get worse than dead.

Markgway wrote:I think this highlights the differing cultural attitudes between Asian audiences and western audiences. They don't seem to take the topic of rape very seriously. If I had a dollar for every Wong Jing rape gag I could buy Pespi...

I would say it's more because Asia is more Male orientated than the West. They've not burn their bras yet . Japan is definitely very male orientated.

Markgway wrote:Oh, and I would say murder is a lot worse than rape, Brad. For a start you're, um, dead.

Tom said it was 10 times worse. I disagreed with that, not that it was worse.

Markgway wrote:So is the hero character actually a rapist then or is it just an exploitative title?

In HK you have the popular Raped By an Angel series (and most of those are pretty offensive). I think this highlights the differing cultural attitudes between Asian audiences and western audiences. They don't seem to take the topic of rape very seriously. If I had a dollar for every Wong Jing rape gag I could buy Pespi...

Oh, and I would say murder is a lot worse than rape, Brad. For a start you're, um, dead. Rape is horrible, but at least you're alive. Doesn't get worse than dead.

What about rape-murder or murder-rape (depending on preference)?

I can't believe you all let Romero start this nonsense off. He's not even a troll, just an angry young man with bad skin.

How do you recommend we stop him? . Besides Romero is hilarious. I wouldn't step in his way .

No reason to stop Romero. This conversation is what I aimed for when I posted the film review.

Markgway wrote:So is the hero character actually a rapist then or is it just an exploitative title?

He is a rapist, basically, but the film plays purely for laughs, even the rape scenes for the most part. It's indeed very much a Wong Jing type of film, except less graphic and executed in japanese tv drama style. And of course it's a superhero movie, which makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.

The plot is about a high school teacher and his silly uncle, who run the "Rapeman Services Company". If you have a good reason, for example some bitch seduced and destroyed your husband, you can hire the rapeman to avenge it for you. The profit from the company is given to orphan children!


Some quotes from IMDB so you see I'm not making this up

The plot of "Rapeman" may sound offensive for some viewers,however the film is not as violent and sleazy as many other notable pinku flicks.In fact it's surprisingly funny and humorous.The rape scenes are very tame and there is only a little bit of nudity,so the film can be enjoyed even by the viewers who dislike pinku genre.A perfect flick to cheer somebody up!

This film, as weird as it sounds has a strange charm about it that overrules the potentially sleazy content. The film feels much more like a main-stream TV crime series, despite the rape-content.

The movie is believe it or not, warmhearted. It's full of humor, and has some nice sex scenes...they are actually rape scenes but they don't play out like rape. Which for me makes the movie that much better. I wouldn't be down with this if the rape scenes were reminiscent of Irreversible. The movie has charm, a very good cast, some great music and well-written story! It take an incredibly serious subject and makes it seem OK

"Rapeman 1" is a well written and sweet genre hybrid that mainstreams the original manga's more controversial elements and delivers a quality piece of entertainment.

HungFist wrote:From this point of view rapes and realistic violence should actually be less harmful, although of course you can rate those PG as the those scenes would be too disturbing for young kids. But if you ask me, films like Requiem for a Dream and Saving Private Ryan (film quality aside) should be shown in schools to every 13 year old kid.

A bit unrelated, but anyway. The Passion of the Christ was passed with a R16 originally by the NZ OFLC. Later fundamentalists lobbied and resubmitted the film, the revised rating was R13. Ditto for 8 Mile.

This Rapeman film sounds like Playschool in comparison to some of the manga that I've read over the years. The Japanese truly do have some disturbing imaginations.

The BBFC would never bow to public pressure and change a films classification, that's shocking. Fundamentalists managed to get 8 Mile released as an R13? I wonder why.

I've just looked up New Zealand's rating system, could you guys have any more ratings? What really is different between R15 and R16? To have M and R16 seems confusing to say the least. What would get an M over R16? Or is one a cinema and one a home video classification? Like the UK 12/12A.

What class of person do they mean for R rated films? You guys can read it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_ ... Zealand%29

bradavon wrote:The BBFC would never bow to public pressure and change a films classification, that's shocking. Fundamentalists managed to get 8 Mile released as an R13? I wonder why.

It was resubmitted for classification and they decided to change their mind, hardly bowing to public pressure. If they had the appropriate monetary amount, Joe Average could (re)submit most any film for classification.

Never did I say that fundamentalists wanted 8 Mile lowered, just that it was also lowered from a R16 to R13 after reclassification. Stop drawing conclusions without all the facts.

What really is different between R15 and R16?

I've never seen a R15 being used.

To have M and R16 seems confusing to say the least.

Our M is the equivalent to your 12A, by the sounds of it.

What would get an M over R16?

Drug use and the appropriate levels of violence, I guess. American Pie is the sort of that gets R16's.

Or is one a cinema and one a home video classification? Like the UK 12/12A.

No, it's universal. Cinema, DVD, pooter games.

EvaUnit02 wrote:It was resubmitted for classification and they decided to change their mind, hardly bowing to public pressure.

That's different then.

EvaUnit02 wrote:Never did I say that fundamentalists wanted 8 Mile lowered, just that it was also lowered from a R16 to R13 after reclassification.

You did, but it's not important.

Otherwise thanks.

bradavon wrote:The BBFC would never bow to public pressure and change a films classification, that's shocking.

Er your forgetting the whole 12A debatical, so your wrong. Parents moaned, they made a new clasifcation.

romerojpg wrote:Er your forgetting the whole 12A debatical, so your wrong. Parents moaned, they made a new clasifcation.

I'm not forgetting anything.

The BBFC created a new category, they never changed their stance on Spider-man. That being it's not suitable for under 12s.

HungFist wrote:He is a rapist, basically, but the film plays purely for laughs, even the rape scenes for the most part. It's indeed very much a Wong Jing type of film

Yeah, doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Call me po-faced but I've always found rape a difficult subject to joke about. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds? I just can't imagine how they could make this without it being grossly offensive. I'm not big on bad taste humour on the whole and I'm not sure if making the rapes palatable is actually better or worse. Does it endorse the "women like it really" myth?

I think Hung has no problem watching rape. That's just an observation not a derogatory comment.

Markgway wrote:

HungFist wrote:He is a rapist, basically, but the film plays purely for laughs, even the rape scenes for the most part. It's indeed very much a Wong Jing type of film

Yeah, doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Call me po-faced but I've always found rape a difficult subject to joke about. Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds? I just can't imagine how they could make this without it being grossly offensive.

Well, movies are of course always (and only) a matter of personal taste/opinion and I don't have anything against someone disliking or not being interested in this type of films (I only have something against people who make claims that are not based on facts, and people who think they have the right to set a moral standards for the rest of us)

Markgway wrote: I'm not big on bad taste humour on the whole and I'm not sure if making the rapes palatable is actually better or worse. Does it endorse the "women like it really" myth?

That's the problem that Tom and I already tried to bring up. It doesn't matter if the movie glamorizes rape or not, if it displays violence realistically or not, if it shows the positives or the negatives of drug use. There's no connection to reality. But, movies with a "message" (which however is not intented to be applied to real life, ever) tend to be the most interesting ones.

One reason why I'm such a big fan of classic exploitation films is that they often offer so much material and "ideologies" to analyze. Does the content reflect the film maker's real opinions/ideologies? Did the time period affect on the film's view/description of the world? Is the director perhaps mentally insane? Analyzing this is half of the fun in these films. Nevertheless, every viewer should have enough brains to understand that you can't adapt these ideologies into your real life thinking.

It's no different from more over the top examples like Arnold and Commando. The message of that film may be that violence and AK-47 are the answer. Still, I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to take it seriously. With more down to earth subjects it's just the same. A good example would be Passion of the Christ, which would be otherwise a pretty bland film but the possible anti jew message and Gibson's own religious "passion" make it a more interesting experience.

The film ratings are needed of course because kids aren't always able to handle this kind of things see the difference between reality and fiction (especially when it comes to ideological guestions). But adult censorhip is something I don't believe in. Grown ups should be able to understand that movies only ask questions (even whey they are presented in a form of a "statement"), they never offer solutions.