This poster was made for Hakujitsumu, aka Daydream, which premiered in Japan today in 1981. The movie is loosely based on a 1926 novel by Junichir Tanizaki, which director Tetsuji Takechi made into one of the first pinku films in 1964. The same director felt inspired to put together a porno remake and, blazing a trail once again, it was the first hardcore movie to be shown in Japanese cinemas. We wanted to see what Takechi did with his revision so we watched it, and it sets up pretty much the same way as the first movie, with KyÅko Aizome at her dentist’s office, the dentist and his assistant administering gas, then both taking liberties once Aizome is helpless. The action is witnessed by another patient, who follows Aizome around town as she has a series of erotic interludes that spiral off into quasi reality designed to sow doubt concerning whether any of it really happened.
We can’t say the hardcore action here is highly erotic, but certain non-sex sequences get there, including Aizome’s nude hotel escape, and her naked lathering and rinse inside a car wash. Not that we’re down on hardcore. It’s just that we insist everything be made to look beautiful. In the sex scenes Takechi, seeking to prove that the action was indeed real, went anatomical. It’s an understandable choice—if you can finally show it, why not show it, nutsacks, assholes, milky fluids and all? But even though we’re from the generation that is supposed to reflexively love explicit hardcore, we’re old souls, and particularly appreciate porn where we know it’s real but don’t see everything (maybe Aizome felt the same way—she directed her own remake in 2009). Regardless of the success or failure of Hakujitsumu, anytime we see the phrase “the first film that…” we’re fully on board. Now we can say we saw the first Japanese film that went hardcore. That’s something, at least. Below, Aizome inspires daydreams, and you can see more from her here.
