After having enjoyed 3 Dolls Go to Hong Kong on one of my earlier Tokyo trips, I made sure to catch another film in the series when I had the chance. 3 Dolls and Baby Gang one isn’t quite as much fun, but still a pleasant way to spend the morning at the movies. The film is a cross-over between the 3 Dolls series and the Baby Gang aka Acchan series, being the 7th in the former and the 3rd in the latter. The three sister run into the badly behaving “baby gang” (lead by the 6 year old 18th generation Kanzaburo Nakamura of the legendary kabuki actor family dating back to the 16th century!) and fall in love with a handsome university student. Many of the jokes are pretty lame, but the film is still somehow very sympathetic and looks just damn gorgeous visually. There's the kind of naïve and old fashioned charm to this film that has since become a lost art.
Evil Charms (色魔狼) (Japan, 1973) [TV] – 3.5/5
This is a fascinating mix of corporate revenge noir and actor Tatsuo Umemiya’s playboy antics. The actor was Toei’s no. 1 lady killer, and starred in countless sleazy films ranging from nocturnal noirs to silly sexploitation films. Here he plays a young man seducing women left and right in order to get closer to a rotten company boss (Fumio Watanabe), who drove his father to suicide years ago. The film starts out incredibly fleshy with almost non-stop bed scenes, but completely moves away from the sex as the story progresses. It’s not a particularly flashy film, in fact it’s quite a talkative piece, but it’s an oddly interesting character study. A “cool” visual touch and chilly fall / winter setting add to the atmosphere. A better than average effort from director Yasuo Furuhata, who was better known for sexless yakuza films with Ken Takakura. Worth noting is that this film was completed and brought to theatres under the title “Shikima”, however, the title was changed mid-release to “Shikima okami”. Original advertising materials with differing titles can still easily be come across, which has caused much confusion.
