This cool poster is for the Japanese roman porno flick Bakeneko Toruko furo, aka A Haunted Turkish Bathhouse, a movie you should think of as an off-the-program addition to the website today, as it is not playing at Noir City. Obviously, the poster reveals that this is a ghost cat movie, and the title does too—a bakeneko is a cat that has changed into a yōkai, or supernatural creature. They made plenty of these ghost cat flicks in Japan, including Kaidan nobori ryu, aka Black Cat’s Revenge, which we talked about a while back.

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.

Bondage queen Naomi Tani became one of Nikkatsu's biggest stars, centerpiece of the company's roman porno line of movies during the 1970s. Above are five promo posters from her films during that period. They are, top to bottom, Zankoku: kurobara lynch, aka Cruelty: Black Rose Torture, Kashin no irezumi: nureta tsubo, aka Tattooed Flower Vase, Monzetsu! Donden Gaeshi, aka Painful Bliss! Final Twist, Kurobara fujin, aka Lady Black Rose, and lastly unknown. On that final poster, we checked IMDB, JMDB and every source of Japanese cinema we know but got no hits. The first word in the title is Tani’s name, and while we found a few movies that incorporated her name—along the lines of 1977’s Tie! Naomi Tani—we did not find anything on the poster above. Ain’t that always the way? It’s actually the most interesting of the lot. Anyone with insight feel free to drop us a line. In the meantime you can check out more Tani here, here, and here, and elsewhere in the site if you’re inclined to look. 

Akira Katô’s crime thriller Shinayakana kemonotachi, for which you see the promo poster above, had the interesting English title She-Beasts, Warm Bodies, and was also known as Sensuous Beasts. It stars Mari Tanaka and is noteworthy for being Naomi Tani’s first movie. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to track down a copy so the poster is all you get for now. We do know that it’s a bit of a black comedy, and the plot revolves around embezzlement, drug trafficking, and of course the yakuza. We’ll keep our eyes open for this one and maybe report back. Tanaka and Tani appear in the promo shots below. Shinayakana kemonotachi premiered in Japan today in 1972. 

 

Above is a poster for Genso fujin ezu, aka Fascination: Portrait of a Lady, aka Fantasy Portrait of a Wife, one of many S&M movies starring Naomi Tani, aka the Queen of Pink. In this one Tani plays Hisako, a bored housewife married to a conservative art professor. Hisako is beset by bizarre sexual daydreams, including one of being captured like a stray dog and stuck in a cage. Her frustrations soon center on Tachiki, a visionary art student her husband has expelled from school for being too modernist. Hisako and Tachiki soon begin meeting, and Tachiki introduces Hisako to a world of bondage and other dubious delights. The husbanddoesn't really understand the extent of his wife’s straying until she doesn’t come home one night. Not entirely her fault, though, as she’s tied up in Tachiki’s flat. In the morning Tachiki is inspired by lingering rope impressions on Hisako’s flesh to attempt something more permanent—he tattoos her entire body with a rope design. Hisako’s husband, you can be sure, is going to be pissed.

That’s all we’ll say about the plot of Genso fujin ezu. The idea of a person’s transformation taking on psychic then physical dimensions is pretty clear, but daydreams of domination and humiliation just don’t resonate for us. Bondage and rope arts occupy an important place in Japanese culture, so maybe that’s simply the default direction for bored cinema wives, the same way American movies from the period often featured women taking a walk on the wild side with hot-rodders or counterculture types. That’s our best guess, anyway. Oniroku Dan is the mind behind the literary genre that birthed these films, and if we’d read any of his books we’d have a better idea exactly why Hisako veers into S&M, but failing that we’ll just take the movie on its own merits. Genso fujin ezu premiered today in 1977.

We’ve had this one laying around for a few years. It’s a Japanese promo poster of Naomi Tani holding—disconcertingly—a demonic mask with extremely sharp horns. But of course, most images of Tani play with the duality of eroticism and danger. Except usually the danger is to her. Don’t know what we mean? Just clickety-click here and here. 

San Sebastian in general and Cinema Caravan in particular are keeping us busy, but we have time for a quick post, so here we go. Last night we attended a screening of Hiroyuki Nakano’s 1998 adventure/comedy SF: Episode One, also known as Samurai Fiction. It’s a quirky movie, imaginatively shot mostly in black and white, and involves a young samurai on a mission to both avenge a friend’s death and retrieve a priceless sword. He encounters an ex-samurai who tries to teach him the wisdom of non-violence, with limited success. The movie is set in 1689 and looks a bit like Kurosawa’s great period pieces, but subverts that similarity with its humor and modern rock 'n’ roll soundtrack. Since it was in Japanese with English subtitles, the mostly Basque audience was perhaps a bit baffled, but even those with language difficulties could enjoy the film’s visual creativity, and ultimately everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Watching Samurai Fiction got us thinking about our many Japanese posters, and because we actually have access to that stuff wherever we go, we decided to share five of the nicer pieces in our collection. In terms of  information on these, time is a little tight to research them carefully, but here’s what we know: poster one—nothing; poster two—Nawa Hada Jigoku: Rope Skin Hell, with Naomi Tani, 1979; poster three—we’re unsure on that one, but that’s definitely Kayoko Honoo in the art; poster four—Kapone no shatei, yamato damashi, aka A Boss with a Samurai Spirit, with Tomisaburô Wakayama, 1971; poster five—nothing. But we'll see if we can find something about that one. See ya soon.

This colorful poster for Masaru Konuma’s sexual drama Nureta tsubo, aka Wet Vase, aka Wet Tattooed Vagina, depicts star Naomi Tani in a tableau taken directly from the movie. In the scene, Tani becomes sexually aroused by watching a man perform oral sex on a mannequin. Tani is ashamed and embarrassed at first, but the guy just keeps at it until she basically collapses in an overstimulated heap. It’s really a beautifully shot scene that by itself is worth the price of renting the flick, in our opinion. Nureta tsubo is part of Nikkatsu’s roman porno stable, but it’s an atypical example—at least, it seems so to us. There are fewer of the extravagances one might expect from a film starring Japan’s Queen of S&M. But that doesn’t mean it’s conservative—on the contrary, it’s plenty kinky. We mentioned that mannequin licking thing, right? See for yourself. We’ve posted some screen grabs from that amazing scene below. Nureta tsubo opened in Japan this month in 1976.