ZOOM UP! More Japanese Roman Porno coming your way!

ZOOM UP: THE BEAVER BOOK GIRL (1981)
D. Takashi Kanno
Impulse Pictures. Synapse Films

2:35-1 / 16X9 Anamorphic

This is the fourth release from Impulse Pictures/ Synapse Films Nikkatsu Roman Porno Collection series, celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the Japanese studio. Without question this is my favorite of the releases so far. This is officially the 3^rd film in the loosely connected “ZOOM UP” series, the first being ZOOM UP: RAPE SITE in 1979 and the second ZOOM UP: RAPE APARTMENT in 1980 both by different directors and boasting different plot lines. So it makes no difference that you are jumping into the series after a couple of other entries. If the other two are as interesting as this one, I hope Impulse/Synapse has them on the future schedule.

ZOOM UP: THE BEAVER BOOK GIRL deals with a photographer for a slick skin magazine who specializes in those ever popular panty shots and upskirt voyeur pics. His newest specialty is piss pics, which seem to be the only thing that even remotely turn him on. When he comes home to find his assistant and newest model fucking wildly in the living room he goes about cooking dinner like nothing is going on. When she hungrily begs him to join, he violent pushes them both out of the way and finishes his cooking. He is clearly a man with some sexual hang ups. We get a peek at what that might be when his boss (who continually hits on him, grabbing his dick every chance he gets) mentions to a new model that his “true artistry” lies in his past as a rapist(!) but it was okay because all the girls instantly fell in love with him. 

Meanwhile a slightly older woman, maybe in her thirties, has been stalking the three leads as they go about their day of making pornographic pictures. She finally makes her way into their loft and gets in on the action in a sequence that will send piss fetishists into a blissful fugue state. We later learn from the skin magazine editor that this lady is named  Nami ( Nami is a common name used in a lot of Manga and sexually explicit films in Japan) and she was the most popular skin game model until year before when she dropped out mysteriously, taking five million yen with her she robbed from him. But he tells the photographer that if she shows back up to get her to pose again and then give him a call so he can get his money back.

Naturally she does show back up, but she is so game to do things that the other models won't do, the he does not call his boss. Instead she convinces him to go to a another remote location for a more private shoot. But we just know things are going to get weird, and they do indeed. As it turns out they have much more of a past together than he even could possibly remember. 

Much more intricately plotted than the other three Nikkatsu film released so far, this one goes from being a voyeuristic skin flick, to a weird study on fetishism, to a rape/revenge film all in the same couple of reels. It even throws in a really raw and bizarre love story at some point. Mix into that some of the most potent, edgy and down right dirty sex in the Nikkatsu films up to this point and you get a winner of a film. Of course, if off the beaten path sex is a turn off to you, you might want to consider giving this film, and the others as well, a really wide birth. But if you have some adventure in your soul, and things like S+M, or particular fetishists really catch your attention, this may be a something for you to take a look at. Just like the other films, it is really well made, has a peculiar point of view, and ends up being weirdly haunting before it is all over. 

The disc includes the short, but catch-line filled trailer, and nicely done liner notes by author and historian Jasper Sharp. Watch for his book THE HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF JAPANESE CINEMA from Scarecrow press.

Review © Andy Copp

Whores I tell ya!

ALL WOMEN ARE WHORES (1980)
aka. Dan Oniroku hakui nawa jigoku / White Uniform in Rope Hell

D. Shôgorô Nishimura

Torrent Sites

No Subtitles

ALL WOMEN ARE WHORES aka WHITE UNIFORM IN ROPE HELL is widely considered to be among the most offensive of the Pinku Ega films that flooded the market in Japan during the late 70's/ early 80's period. That is saying something considering the wildly offensive nature of the Nikkatsu output and films like BEAUTIFUL GIRL HUNTER STAR OF DAVID or ASSAULT! JACK THE RIPPER. But make no mistake this one is actually just as nasty as rumors have claimed. A sadistic rape fetish film that spirals into an all out horror orgy in the last reel that leaves one scratching their head about just what audience it was intended for in the first place. 

 

To be fair I watched it without subtitles so maybe I missed some overriding sense of justice or political polemic, but I kind of doubt it. This seemed to be all about the forced enema's, rope bondage, rape and what new and disgusting items could be forced into some screaming bound woman's vagina. 

 

The movie opens with two thugs in their twenties watching a pretty young lounge singer belting out a tune. They con her back to their filthy, disgusting rotting food covered apartment, where they tie her up, drug her with a huge fix of heroin and proceed to do unspeakable things to her for the first half of the film. These things include painful looking rope bondage, rape and forced enemas. This all goes on for a ridiculously extended period of time until they are found by some other members of the mob including a woman who is more sadistic than them. The movie then shifts gears to a second story with another lounge singer who this woman apparently has a huge hate-on for and the thugs help her kidnap and torture. But things start going wrong as the older and goofier of the two guys falls for the gal. Which sends the lady boss into a rage, making the torture of the first girl look like a walk in the park.

 Soon she is doing things like slicking up a real live snake with vaseline and shoving it into the poor girls vagina. Before things are over you will see a guy get his cock cut off while fucking someone and a girl get stabbed in the crotch and then then lovelorn idiot who was trying to protect her proceed to EAT HER OUT to show he still loves her. Some movies end in tears, this one ends in blood and more blood. 

 

To call this one crazy is to sell it short. To call it depressing it understating the matter. But in no way does the the English title make sense, as it should be called ALL MEN ARE RAPIST KILLER FREAKZOIDS, but I don't think that sells as well in the land of the rising sun.

Review © Andrew Copp

Welcome to SEX HELL!

TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: SEX HELL (1975)
D. Koyu Ohura

Impulse Pictures/ Synapse

This is the second release in the Impulse Pictures line of Nikkatsu Romano Porno releases after the intense and outrageous DEBAUCHERY. This one is not as outright bugfuck crazy as that one, but still manages to climb some heights of sexuality that are unseen in American product, so it will hit the spot for sleaze fans. But what SEX HELL does indeed offer is a more complex story, and richer characters than the standard fair, making it the odd film out in the Women in Prison genre.

The film takes its ques from the FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION films that were popular at the time in Japan (and I believe also being made at Nikkatsu) where a tough, unbreakable women enters a woman's prison and all hell breaks loose with lots of action ensuing. Here we have a similar story, where a quiet, unshakable woman entering with a group of new criminals into a all female prison, only to soon clash with the gritty already established criminal hierarchy there. In a very early scene (after of course a nude cavity search and the obligatory showers) there is a topless fight and our lead gal is held down and has her face pissed on to show she has been dominated. I can't recall having ever seen that in any other WIP movie from any other country! Another girl is put into solitary confinement for days on end as her toilet backs up and we clearly see her shit all over  the room.These are the kinds of boundaries being pushed here.

The first half of the movie is where the majority of the sex happens, we get some of the the expected lesbian romps, with lots of nipple close ups filling the screen, and a few flashbacks to give us some hetero couplings as well. But about the middle of the movie it shifts gears and we start getting flashbacks to why the girls are actually in the prison. The movie starts to become rather tragic, as we learn the most of them are victims of circumstance. Men have fucked them over, used them and abused them, letting them take the fall. By the third act it becomes a women on the run/revenge pic with the sex taking a back seat completely, and a pretty satisfying little revenge picture at that. 

SEX HELL is a great example of why the Nikkatsu Romano Porno films were successful. They took formula ideas such as the Women In Prison pictures and infused them with the over the top sexuality the studio was known for, but then went way out of the way to make sure they delivered as films too. They delivered characters you could care about, with performers that could carry those characters (even though SEX HELL has no real name stars from the Nikkatsu stable) and in this case threw in a hefty dose of crime action as well. These movies are just trying to make you love them, and most of the time if you aren't easily offended (and why would you buy this title if you are) you WILL fall for their charms.

Review © Andrew Copp

DEBAUCHERY at it's finest! Impulse Pictures releases the first of the Nikkatsu line!!!

DEBAUCHERY (Ryoshoku) (1983)
D. Hidehiro Nakagawa
Impusle Pictures
1.85  16X9 Anamorphic

This first release from Synapse/Impulse pictures new line of Japanese Nikkatsu Pink films is sure to cause some shock waves among collectors who have been waiting patiently for the titles to arrive. DEBAUCHERY has it all and then some. While it may not be as savage as some of the already available Pink classics like BEAUTIFUL GIRL HUNTING: STAR OF DAVID or ASSAULT! JACK THE RIPPER or as politically motivated as the work of Koji Wakamatsu, it delivers on the most important aspect of these films, which is sheer unadulterated perversity.  If you are looking for a film that touches on your secret perversions, DEBAUCHERY is
more than likely that film.

The movie starts out quietly enough with our heroine Ami (Japanese sex starlet Ryoko Watanabe) playing racquetball with her Husband’s oldest friend and her former boss. As she leaves with her husband she mentions in passing that she is uncomfortable with the way the friend looks as her. Her husband mentions that he was probably always in love with Ami.  After a night of lovemaking it becomes clear that Ami and her Husband are not in the most heated of relationships. The next day Ami meets her friend and in turn runs into the former friend again and in an awkward conversation he reveals some information to her about a high class brother called “Madame Machiko Society Club” where many women go to be prostitutes. Often many of them being housewives looking for thrills. Taking the bait, Ami whores herself out one afternoon to a brutal young Yakuza man. Finding she has a taste for the dangerous life, she gets a job at Madame Machiko’s.  This of course leads to several heated encounters with clients that include belt whippings, anal beads, and an impressive slow motion fuck scene that puts all modern porno to shame.

After her first prostitution session she offhandedly stuffs the money she made into the hand of a crazy man in the park. She clearly did not do it for the money, but for the thrill. It turns out this elderly, insane man is a single Father raising a rambunctious teenage sexpot in a tenement that will play heavily in the last reel of the film. 

The meat of the movie however is how Ami becomes the captive sex slave of one of her clients, and the sexual torture she ends up enduring at the hands of this madman, who managed to set the entire enterprise up to get control of her and her sexual awakening.  It is from this point that every sexual fetish imaginable (save some scat) rears its blood engorged head; whipping, bondage, lingerie, leather, thread around nipples, fingers in the butt, leading around by chains and collars, forced to crawl through the streets, rape, given to homeless men for a gang-bang, pissing, medical/bandages, even incest sneaks out of the box before it is all over and done with. Really no stone is left unturned.

But for the uninitiated what makes these Japanese movies like this so intriguing is that they are well made films, with high production values and actual stories. These are not one day wonders shot on the cheap with non-actors, short end film stocks and production staff that didn’t care. These are highly professional films with career writers and directors on board who took them very seriously. There is actual storytelling capability going on, which usually makes them that much more aggressive, more unusual, and much more sexual when it gets down to brass tacks. Some of the material may be very offensive to western eyes, but it is also the much more sexually charged as well.

Of course due to the very weird censorship issues this is still fogged, so genitalia is not visible. Which is only an issue twice in this movie. Otherwise nude genitals are kept out of the picture and replaced with creative perversions.

The DVD looks really good, with some mild grain early on during the racquetball scene, but once it gets to the heavy color saturated stuff in the brothel scenes it looks quite lovely. The colors really pop all around the actors setting a highly sexualized mood but are always stable and satisfying. The sound is always solid and distortion free.

The only extras are a very entertaining trailer and great liner notes from Jasper Sharp who has a book about Japanese film hitting the shelves called The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema.

If you like erotica, Japanese cinema of cult cinema, you owe it to yourself to take a look at this.

Review © Andrew Copp