Beautiful and very rare, the two posters above were made to promote Toei Company’s Urufu gai: Moero ôkami-otoko, aka Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope, a rollicking thriller that premiered in Japan today in 1975 and starred Shin’ichi Chiba, better known in the West as Sonny Chiba. Based on a manga series by Kazumasa Hirai, the movie involves a vicious invisible tiger that’s killing the members of a Tokyo rock band who gang-raped a woman named Miki and infected her with syphilis because a powerful politician wanted her relationship with his son sabotaged. The tiger is the manifestation of Miki’s curse.

You may be saying to yourself, “But none of that has anything to do with lycanthropy.” You’d be right, but there is in fact lycanthropy here—Chiba the tough reporter is a werewolf. He can’t yet harness his power, but try telling that to J-CIA, a secret organization that will stop at nothing until they obtain Chiba’s vital fluids and create human-wolf hybrids. Hero and heroine’s paths and genitals eventually cross, and from this union Chiba realizes how to control his wolfly abilities.

But there’s more, oh so much more, to this film. Urufu gai: Moero ôkami-otoko is gory good fun, low budget, but well worth a viewing thanks to Nami Etsuko as Miki and, of course, the legendary Chiba. Good luck tracking down a copy. Ours was a cable television rip with all the crazy Japanese commercials intact. 

Hello Pulp International readers! I'm Commercial Girl. The Pulp guys have asked me to introduce five screenshots from Urufu gai: Moero ôkami-otoko. Please enjoy and have a wonderful Tuesday!

The enraged lycanthrope acquits himself admirably in a fight as none other than Steve McQueen the King of Cool looks on with studied approval.

Some girls don’t like wolf blood so when you find one who digs it this much she’s a keeper. Napkins? Nonsense! This blood is finger licking good.

Wild thing you make my heart sing… and squirt like a lawn sprinkler. It’s just give give give with this girl.

Hey, douche nozzles, why the fuck did I hire you? Look at my mouth. That thing hanging there? That's called a cigarette. What does it need? Here’s a hint—why does it emphysema like you never fuckin' listen?

Shhh…I can hear her spirit speaking to me through her portrait. She says KFC bucket meals are 30% off for a limited time only. Um, Wolfguy, you turned off the tv in the other room, right?

Hi! Commercial Girl here again. The Pulp guys say Tuesday sucks especially hard. Even more so when your fantasy baseball team goes 2 for 39 and you lose seventeen points! So here’s one more screenshot because you need extra cheering up!

All of us in Kiss want every one of you out there to remember to rock 'n' roll all night and party EVERY DAY! Geishas RULE! Sushi and blow FOREVER! So long Tokyo! Or as you say here, Sayonara! 

High priestess of bondage Naomi Tani is at it again in Shôgorô Nishimura’s roman porno Dan Oniroku: Nawa-geshô aka Rope Cosmetology, aka Rope Makeover. Based on yet another Oniroku Dan story, Tani plays Kanako, a frustrated housewife whose best friend puts her together with a bondage artist keen to introduce her to the fine arts of humiliation and subjugation. It’s all pretty basic stuff that he’s into at first. He lets her watch another woman being disciplined. Then he ties her up and gives her intro level treatment. He tickles her. He makes her pee in a bucket. He makes her crawl around his apartment while wearing a leash. Then this happens:

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.

West German born Ursula Buchfellner got her start in Playboy and was one of those models who actually got into the magazine before her eighteenth birthday, with a shot featured in the West German edition in December 1977, when she was sixteen, and a photo appearing in the U.S. edition in February 1978, when she was seventeen. Her eventual Playmate of the Month layout was in 1979, and from there she went on to star in films such as El Caníbal, aka Devil Hunter, the humorous Hot Dogs auf Ibiza, aka Hot Dogs on Ibiza, and 3 Lederhosen in Saint Tropez. This shot is from 1979.

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.

An idyllic scene on the French Riviera is revealed in these three photos, as Danish actress Mirette Stroyberg and her sister Annette Vadim—who was married to director Roger Vadim and had starred in his film Les liaisons dangereuses, aka Dangerous Liaisons—walk on Pampelonne Beach one afternoon in 1959. Remember—the good life is as near as the next sunny day. 

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 the 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 rare and amazing shot shows French actress Geneviève Grad, who is rare and amazing herself. She made many films, including the spy thriller OSS 117 prend des vacances, but is well known for the Gendarme de Saint-Tropez series, in which she appeared from 1964 to 1968. This image was made in 1963. 

Japanese cinema loves its nuns, whether clothed or naked, dominant or submissive, or sometimes just copping a squat in the woods. So today for your enjoyment we have six sexploitation posters featuring these figures, spanning the years 1968 through 1980. Remember, just looking isn't a sin. Title and star info appears at bottom.

From top to bottom: Nun’s Prohibited Night with Yuki Nohira, Tattooed Nun’s Dissolute Life with Jun Kosugi, Nunnery Confidential with Junko Fuji, A Nun’s Rope Hell with Naomi Oka, Humiliated Nun with Mihoko Kuga, and Black Clothed Nun’s Pain with Eri Kanuma. As you know by now, these films had no Western release, which means the English titles we’ve given are approximate, at best. 

Continuing the process of cleaning off our French shelf, we have an issue of the pin-up magazine Stop. This one, issue #18 from 1962, is devoted entirely to Brigitte Bardot, and inside you get studio and outdoor photography of the legendary sex symbol, plus production stills from several of her films.

The cover image of her in front of the Eiffel Tower is iconic, but the image in panel sixteen, just above, is one of the most famous ever made of her. It was shot by Willy Rizzo in Saint-Tropez during the 1956 production of Roger Vadim’s Et Dieu… crea la femme, aka And God Created Woman, and it pretty much sums up the quality of Bardot’s sex appeal.

Saint-Tropez was just a sleepy seaside village back then, so you can imagine what all those crusty fishermen in the cafés thought the first time they saw this woman walking barefoot along their waterfront. Mermaid? Tramp? Angel? Waif? Bardot had all those elements and more, which is a large part of why—in addition to her copious talent—she became such a transcendent star.

Today she remains in the public eye, if controversially, and it’s ironic that someone who once united people in their appreciation of her beauty, acting and singing is now such a polarizing figure. The above photo isn’t the only image that survives from that famed Rizzo session, so just for the fun of it, we’ve posted a few more below to help you dream about springtime.

Hana to hebi: kyûkyoku nawa chôkyô was released with the English title Flower and Snake 5: Rope Magic, which is is a very pretty collection of nouns for an exercise in torture porn. Fairly hard torture porn, too, probably because by the time this was made by Nikkatsu Studios, adult video was taking a major bite out of Japan’s pinku market. The plot here is simple: a gambler with debts loses his wife and daughter to the Yakuza, who proceed to humiliate the women in various fiendish ways. There’s an escape attempt that goes awry, but basically the story is just a framework for increasingly devilish forms of sexual degradation. You got your dildos. You got your hot wax. You got your urine. This is soooo not our thing. But what is our thing is the promo art, which is just lovely, even while evincing the film’s highly dubious nature. Experienced pinku fans, or those into the Japanese art of Kinbaku-bi (beautiful bondage) may dig this movie. All others proceed with caution. Hana to hebi: kyûkyoku nawa chôkyô, premiered in Japan today in 1987.