This beautiful poster was made to promote the drama Sasori, or Scorpion, a nice bit of cinematic diversion, as it turned out. Basically, it’s about how Tokyo businessman Yunosuke Itô goes on a trip to Nagoya, sees a porn movie in an underground film club, and is inspired to cheat on his wife with the establishment’s beautiful projectionist Tomomi Sato. Instead of letting sleeping flings lie, Itô keeps messing around with Sato over the course of several days, then decides to invite her back to Tokyo to become his mistress. She’s into it, but not long afterward runs into an old friend who she takes as a lover, which prompts her to start demanding more money from Itô.
You can see how this would be a problem, feeding two mouths, so to speak. When Itô finds out Sato has been two-timing him a break-up would be the logical move, but instead pride comes to the fore and the situation goes terribly sideways. Is it two-timing when your mistress cheats, or is it three-timing? Doesn’t matter. Itô is in trouble up to his little mustache, and getting out may be nigh impossible. That’s probably the moral of the film: the scorpion always stings. In the end, Sasori is a solid drama that looks excellent, is well acted, and gets help from an ultrahip jazz score. If you like Japanese cinema, you can proceed with confidence. It premiered in Japan today in 1967.
