Modern Pulp | Aug 28 2017 |
Vintage Pulp | Dec 2 2015 |
And that’s pretty hard to get past. At least it is for us. Sometimes we encounter pretty weird shit maintaining this website, and this is one of those times. Most assessments of Shôgorô Nishimura’s oeuvre mention that this film was about as far out as he got, and we suppose the world should be thankful for that. Dan Oniroku: Nawa-geshô premiered in Japan today in 1978.
Modern Pulp | Aug 28 2015 |
Based on a bdsm novel written by the acclaimed Oniroku Dan, Onna kyôshi nawa jigoku, aka Female Teacher: Rope Hell, is yet another Japanese exploration of the pleasures, pains, and limits of sexual obsession and bondage. Frankly, this one is a bit tedious. There’s a razor thin line between thoughtful and dangerous when dealing with this kind of material. When Japanese films, in particular, end up on the wrong side of that line, you really have a mess on your hands. We understand, yes, that bad men aren’t always punished in real life. But this isn’t real life. It's just a movie, and punishment is key. In fact, for us it’s the entire point. It’s the only thing that makes these films watchable. But in this case, the abusive male ties up the two objects of his obsession and is tormenting them when one of his candles sets an accidental fire. He and the bound women burn to death. His obsession destroyed them all. That’s the end. Roll credits. Hope we didn’t ruin it for you.
The fixation Japanese film has with sexual abuse is curious. It often occurs for pretty straightforward narrative reasons—rape, or perhaps the murder of husbands and children, or often all three, are the triggers that transform women into terrifying revenants. The mostly thirty-something writers and directors who conceived pinku plots were taking swipes at Japan’s patriarchal social structure by first explicitly revealing a sexist status quo, then allowing feminine power to demolish it. Or so it seems to us. In that way pinku does not differ from blaxploitation. In those, it’s a racist status quo that is revealed and demolished. However revenge movies represent only a slice of the Japanese whole. Many films in the roman porno sub-genre feature degradation without revenge, in which case we think it needs to be very carefully done to avoid endorsing such behavior. Major fail on that account here. All respect to Oniroku Dan, but excesses such as a forced enema and subsequent sloppy evacuation are not things we can get behind, so to speak. Onna kyôshi nawa jigoku premiered in Japan today in 1981.
Vintage Pulp | Jul 21 2009 |
The above promo art is for the Japanese sexploitation flick Dan Oniroku nawa to hada, aka Rope and Skin. It’s one of many films based on the work of S&M author Oniroku Dan. This one concerns a card-dealing employee of a yakuza clan who plans to leave her criminal life behind and marry a chef. And that’s all fine and dandy, but when she exposes the leader of a rival clan as a card cheat, his revenge leaves her love murdered. Things get worse when she attempts to free a girl from prostitution, but ends up captured and tortured. But you can’t keep a good avenging angel down, and that means eventually she’s sprung and of course immediately sets about getting a little payback—toplessly, with mucho arterial spray. Rope and Skin would be Tani's last film after a career that included such efforts as Wet Vase, A New Wife’s Hell, and She-Beasts & Warm Bodies. Whenever we watch these gorefests we’re both repelled (there’s a lot of torture) and attracted (there’s a lot of nudity), but mostly just amazed (did we mention that torture thing?). Rope and Skin/Dan Oniroku nawa to hada premiered in Japan today in 1979.