Modern Pulp | May 14 2021 |
When they gave out maternal instincts Izumi Shima forgot to sign up for her dose.
In Japanese, “haha” means mother, and in Waisetsu kazoku: haha to musume, known in English as Indecent Family: Mother and Daughter, there's a mother who certainly qualifies as funny. Funny as in strange. Mommy dearest is none other than Izumi Shima, one of our favorite pinku actresses, as we've demonstrated numerous times, such as here and here. The idea of her having had a child in this movie defies credulity. She was twenty-nine in it, while Yōko Morimura, who plays her daughter, was at least eighteen. But whatever, it's Nikkatsu roman porno, so you have to go with it.
Plotwise, a middle-aged sad sack played by Akira Shioji makes a connection with Morimura while she's dancing at a strip bar called Mississippi Queen, and she comes to live with him. Never let a stripper move in with you. Every man knows that. But not Shioji, apparently. In short order Morimura's mother Shima moves in too. At first Shioji is pretty thrilled with this arrangement, but it isn't long before Shima decides to show him that mothers know things daughters don't. And that, of course, is the beginning of his problems. Since this is a roman porno, we don't have to detail all the things that go on—you know what to expect, and you know things don't often end well.
You also know there's usually a leftfield subplot, and in this case it has to do with Shioji's house being coveted by his nephew in order to sell it for hotel development. Or something like that. Doesn't matter, because the plot is just a framing device for nudity and cleverly simulated sex. As we've noted before, it's amazing how raunchy a film can be yet not show very much. Shioji and Morimura's sixty-nine session about halfway through is a case in point. You'll really believe he's getting up in her rump. All very fun, and we were especially happy there was no pee. It's a roman porno staple we can do without. For that reason alone we give Waisetsu kazoku: haha to musume a cautious thumbs up. It premiered in Japan today in 1982.
Mother, homemaker, community activist, and filthy freak. She does it all.
I have a hot young girlfriend for sex, and her mother to clean the house. Life doesn't get much better than this.
I feel like singing! Figaro!
And skipping! Wheeee!
Here, why don't you watch while I sensually undress my passed out mom.
Dang. I never noticed until seeing her half-naked, but she's a total milf.
...zzzzzzz...
Hah! I wasn't passed out at all! I was intentionally letting Shioji perv out.
Now that he realizes I'm hotter than the surface of the sun, I'm going to strip him down to the bone just like this spare rib. Sluuuuurp!
Mom! Quit sucking off that rib! You're embarrassing me!
No, my daughter, I don't believe I shall desist from fellating this juicy rib. I don't believe I shall desist at all.
If you think my foot is nice just wait until you experience the warmer and softer parts of my body.
That trip I took to Akiyoshido Cave last year was so cool. How weird that I should think of that now.
Yup. Fucked his brains right out of his skull. Now back to the rib.
You stole my unattractive and inappropriately old lover, mom. I'm not speaking to you.
Bonus material below: a couple of promo photos of Morimura and Shima.
Vintage Pulp | Apr 14 2021 |
She's overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, and has no backup plan. Also there's that whole curse thing.
Can a working girl find happiness à la Pretty Woman? That's the eternal question asked by (Maruhi) jorô seme jigoku, aka The Hell-Fated Courtesan. An Edo-era geisha-turned-prostitute played by Rie Nakagawa is believed by superstitious locals to be cursed because some of those who've had sex with her died. Her only sort-of-friend in this dark existence is a perverted artist, and her pimp is of course cruel and untrustworthy. But eventually she meets a puppeteer to whom she offers herself romantically only to be rebuffed. Surprised, she intones, “This is not an ordinary guy.” She's right. He refused her because he thinks he can only be turned on if a woman looks like one of his puppets, but when he finally samples some of that sweet Nakagawa he changes his mind about that and offers to take her with him to Osaka, where her problems and alleged curse will be behind her. Will she go? Will she be allowed to go? Will fate cut her a break? Pertinent questions all.
In 1973 Nikkatsu Studios' roman porno line had not yet jumped the shark, which means (Maruhi) jorô seme jigoku resembles a normal film in most ways. Its plot is basically linear, though it contains one framing segment; its sexual content is perverse, though not pointlessly misogynistic; and its humor generally works. In fact, there are some truly funny moments in this, such as when Nakagawa lets a carp suck her nipples. We won't even bother to describe what direction that scene goes. Later she slices off a dead man's finger and masturbates with it. Afterward she tells the finger that, though its former owner was a scoundrel and a snake, he will now go to heaven. That's some magical pussy. Maybe Nakagawa isn't cursed after all. Maybe she just embodies male insecurities and fears and they punish her as a result. And if that's true, maybe there is a Pretty Woman ending for her. But you never know. One character observes that a woman's heart is unpredictable and terrifying. (Maruhi) jorô seme jigoku tries to prove that adage true. It premiered in Japan today in 1973
Vintage Pulp | Apr 9 2021 |
When they say high school is torture usually they're kidding.
The beautiful Rushia Santô made only a few films during her brief career. One of them was the Nikkatsu Studios roman porno flick Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede, aka Female Teacher: In Front of the Students. Santô plays a high school teacher, and since her school looks like a prison it's no surprise she experiences a prison style shower rape. The student she eventually accuses of attacking her—Tôru Nakane, who the audience knows is innocent—retaliates by grabbing her and keeping her prisoner over spring break. This being a Nikkatsu film, that imprisonment naturally involves making Santô realize she's a sex maniac, and by the end of the break Santó, the studly Nakane, and his girlfriend Rina Oka are humping like rabbits.
The mystery that isn't a mystery is finally solved in the last part of this 70-minute sprint. There are some weak attempts at humor here and there, such as during a sex scene between Nakane and Oka when he's simultaneously eating a sticky bun and she's eating a banana, but the moment for cinematic discussions of whether some women like to be submissive—still ongoing as recently as in 2015's Fifty Shades of Grey—has definitively passed. As far as we're concerned anything done between consenting adults is fine, but consenting is the operative word. Nikkatsu films often play around with that concept, but these days such explorations are discordant, to say the least. Like all the obscure movies we watch, we're looking for forgotten gems. This is no gem, and maybe just needs to be forgotten. Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede premiered in Japan today in 1982.
Yay! Recess is over! Back to our soul sucking penitentiary of a high school!
I have a very bad feeling about this movie.
Intl. Notebook | Mar 29 2021 |
Tanaka takes a turn in front of the mirror.
We're interested in all things Mari Tanaka, so we had to share this promo image featuring her striking a nice over the shoulder pose. This was made for her movie Rabu Hantâ: Atsui hada, aka Love Hunter: Hot Skin, which premiered in Japan today in 1972. You can see a couple of other interesting promos at our write-up on the film here.
Vintage Pulp | Mar 18 2021 |
The things she can teach can't be learned from books.
Falling squarely into the could-not-be-made-today category, the roman porno flick Kyōshi mejika, which in English was titled Teacher Deer, or sometimes Teacher Doe, stars Hitomi Sakae and premiered in Japan today in 1978. When we first meet Sakae, she beats the shit out of three guys who are committing a sexual assault. Soon afterward we learn she's a biology teacher at a stuffy learning institution called Hakuho High School. Thus we've seen her tough side, and her brainy side. There's one more side, which she shows when she explains anatomy to her class by, well, have a look below:
You'd think this would make her classes pretty popular, at least with the boys, but the students boycott her and the faculty is scandalized. Things get a little blurry here, because her character is supposed to be mixed race. This actually may have been true of Sakae in real life too, though we can't confirm that. In any case, it may contribute to her outsider status at the school, though we can't confirm that either, because some subtleties in Japanese films are beyond us. But we've learned what her character is—tough, smart, and highly sexual.
After she gets chewed out by the school principal for her unusual teaching methods, she and math teacher Izumi Shima go out to commiserate. They pick up a photographer and have a threesome with him, after which Sakae leaves Shima in his company. Shima then turns up missing. The investigation into her disappearance uncovers some naughty photos from threesome night, and from that point things go in directions nobody could have guessed. Suffice it to say that teacher deer's presence at Hakuho High is more than it seems.
We said this movie couldn't be made today, but not because it's racy. It's the high school sex angle. High school implies non-adults, and that's obviously a cinematic no-no—for good reason. In terms of actual visible sexual content, though, Kyōshi mejika is mild for the genre. On one level we're thankful for that, because these flicks can get purely crazy. But on another level, the film isn't terribly creative in terms of plot. We consider it a non-representative example of Nikkatsu Studios' roman porno output, but that makes it one you can come away from feeling relatively okay about yourself.
Femmes Fatales | Musiquarium | Mar 2 2021 |
The performance was good, but the encore was unforgettable.
We asked you to stay tuned, and quicker than you can say ring-a-ding-ding above is Setsuko Ogawa as promised. Her guitar isn't just for decoration. In addition to her many film credits she released a 1973 single and later sang the theme song of the Nikkatsu Studios roman porno flick Enka Jôshikô: Kizudarake no Kaben—translation: “petals full of scars”—in which she headlined.
We've seen Ogawa described as the first roman porno star, and that could be true. Her debut film was 1971's Irogoyomi ōoku hiwa, aka Castle Orgies, and it was Nikkatsu's first official offering from its radical new genre, or possibly the second, depending on which source you believe. She starred in another Nikkatsu movie that year, so she was certainly among the genre's first recognizable faces.
The above image was pasted together from two larger shots and put online several years ago. We found full-frame versions of those separate shots, but not at a useful resolution, so two cropped shots stuck together like Siamese twins is what you get. However the resolution on that image is good, so we put it under the digital knife and split it during a dicey operation that took all of five seconds, with the results below. We'll have more from Ogawa at some point.
Vintage Pulp | Jan 3 2021 |
If you can't find one you like it's because you aren't trying.
This poster was made to promote the movie Nureta yokujo: Tokudashi nijuichi nin, known in English as Wet Lust: 21 Strippers. With a title like that we of course gave it a watch, and it follows an Osaka vagrant named Hosuke who finds a wallet filled with 60,000 yen, and uses it to remake himself into what he describes as “sort of a pimp.” Really, though, he's more like an aspirant leech, and he soon has a profitable hustle going when he meets Meika Seri (we have a promo image of her below right, squatting in foliage, just because) and shepherds her into earning money for them both as a stripper. Yuko Katagiri soon enters the fold, and she and Meika are shortly having sex at home and doing the same on stage for money. Hosuke, now an unneeded presence, tries to hang onto his meal tickets via guilt and intimidation, but such a state of affairs can only last so long.
This is a Nikkatsu Studios movie, though we aren't sure if it qualifies as one of its infamous roman pornos. It resembles one, though, in that it resolves in ironic fashion, as Hosuke's arc ends both fittingly and amusingly. But what you really want in a movie called 21 Strippers is—we're just guessing here—lots of stripping. Lucky you, there's a ton, and from a purely aesthetic perspective, it's interesting to watch the Japanese approach to this art form. Which means in the end, you can pretend the movie is educational. Get out your notepad. We'll be testing you on the material later. Nureta yokujo: Tokudashi nijuichi nin premiered in Japan today in 1974.
Here's some bonus material for you, one promo image each of Yuko Katagiri and Meika Seri. We also, some of you may remember, shared other excellent shots of Meika which you can see here and here. Including the squatting shot above, it all adds up to a nice little collection. In addition, she starred in the 1974 roman porno flick (Maruhi) shikijô mesu ichiba, aka Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market, which we wrote about here.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 5 2020 |
She helps her co-workers in whatever ways she can.
We've had this poster hanging around for a few years, but never uploaded it, hoping we'd eventually find the film and be able to talk about it, but no such luck. In fact, we couldn't even find a detailed plot summary online, so it has all the hallmarks of a lost film. Things like that happen. Anyway, here's a beautiful promo for OL nikki mitsuryô (asaru), which starred Hitomi Kozue and Junko Miyashita, and was known in English as Office Lady Diary: Poaching. It was part of the popular Office Lady series, which ran to six films in its original incarnation, before being reconstituted for a later set. Like we said a few days ago, no idea in cinema goes unrecycled for long. Especially successful ideas. We have a few more Office Lady posters here, here, and here, and another stunning promo image of Hitomi Kozue below. OL nikki mitsuryô (asaru) premiered in Japan today in 1973.
Vintage Pulp | Nov 17 2020 |
Hitomi Kozue finds herself Onna tough job assignment.
By now you've certainly gotten the feeling that we like Japanese actress Hitomi Kozue. We've featured her often, and above you see her on a poster for Onna hisho no kokuhaku: kaniku no shitatari, which was retitled for its English language release Confessions of a Female Secretary: Juice from the Fruit. You have to take a moment to appreciate the baroque weirdness of that title. Quite evocative, no? In addition to the theatrical promo above, we have the DVD cover below. We never share those, but this one is actually pretty nice and features an image of Kozue we hadn't seen before.
The movie deals with an office worker employed at the most Weinsteinian (or Ailesian, if you prefer) company in Tokyo. Mixed in with unwanted advances from various schlubs are Eyes Wide Shut-style masked orgies, drug induced psychedelia, woodland humping, and other kinks and extracurriculars. The end result is another roman porno effort from Nikkatsu Studios about a woman's sexual exploitation and eventual embrace of her own depravity. Ah, the wet dreams of male screenwriters—so perverted, so consistent. Onna hisho no kokuhaku: kaniku no shitatari premiered in Japan today in 1976.
Vintage Pulp | Oct 27 2020 |
Yes, yes! A thousand and one times, yes!
Yes! We're excited because we found yet another astonishingly rare Japanese poster. This was made to promote Tokyo eros senya ichiya, which would translate approximately as “Tokyo One Thousand and One Nights,” but is known in English as Eros Nights in Tokyo. You won't see this anywhere else. At least not uncensored. Now the bad news. Just like a few years ago when we shared the film's standard promo, we're still looking for a damn copy to watch. It stars Izumi Shima, Ayako Meki, and Erina Miyai, and that's a trio we want to see anytime. But it'll have to wait. In the meantime, gaze upon the celestial Izumi in a zoom below, and check her out here and here. For that matter, check out Irina Miyai here. Tokyo eros senya ichiya premiered in Japan today in 1979.