The Spanish online movie platform Filmin offers a new cycle that, under the name of Nikkatsu Pinku Eiga, offers a selection of 10 key titles of Japanese erotic cinema focusing on works produced in the 70s by the famous Nikkatsu studio and the resurrection of the genre by five contemporary directors.
During the 70s, Japan experienced a time similar to our “uncover” and movies became very popular. Pinku eiga, which is just a way of naming a category where all movies with erotic content fit, of any other genre, whether horror, drama or thriller.
The Nikkatsu company created its own film series Pinku Eiga, which it called Roman Porn. A series with great directors of the time with total creative freedom and just one rule: for every hour of footage, there would be a minimum of four nudes and / or erotic scenes.
The Roman Porno had the favor of the public and the critics and are considered a key influence on directors such as Quentin Tarantino or Sion Sono. Later on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the original cycle, Nikkatsu organized the Roman Porno Reboot Project.
Five renowned authors would have the mission of recontextualizing the genre under the premises: It must be a tribute or rereading of the essences of Roman Porno, include a sex scene every ten minutes and the female characters must be in keeping with the new times.
Now, Filmin has rescued five classic titles and another five modern and has separated them into two chronological blocks to cover the two great eras. Due to the cultural characteristics of Japan, all cinema that included erotic scenes was heavily censored, which forced directors to be very creative when filming, giving these films a charm that was not found in erotic cinema European, much more expository and less suggestive. Let’s go into the collection that the platform has prepared.
Night of the felines (Mesunekotachi no yoru, 1972)
Nobotu Tanakaque directs what is considered the founding and most representative title in the history of Japanese eroticism, about a spa prostitute and her partner pressured by her yakuza pimps. Festivals like Rotterdam, Locarno have programmed it in recent years, varnishing with prestige productions that Nikkatsu surely did not plan when he produced them in the 70s.
Lovers Are Wet (Koibito-tachi wa nureta, 1973)
Tatsumi Kumashiro directs this drama about a young man who has been wandering Japan for five years, who returns to the coastal village where he grew up, hoping to redirect his life, but his stay begins to disturb the social order, when begins to practice sex scandalizing the inhabitants.
Black Rose Ascension (Kurobara shôten, 1975)
Tatsumi Kumashiro directs the misadventures of a pretentious porn director, a kind of precedent of ‘Boogie Nights’ (1997), which in turn showed Kumashiro’s own experience in a comic vision of the vicissitudes of an elegant director making erotic cinema.
Assault! Jack the Ripper (Bôkô Kirisaki Jakku, 1976)
The Pinku Eiga were becoming progressively more extreme in their level of sadism and Yasuharu Hasebe directed what is without a doubt one of the most disgusting Roman Porno, about the story of a young waiter and a cook, who kill a young woman in the street and end up sadistically raping and murdering women by stabbing them in the crotch, among other scenes of sexual violence even more disturbing for being inside a movie well shot and acted.
Angel Guts: Red Vertigo (Tenshi no harawata: Akai memai, 1988)
The debut of Takashi ishii It is the fifth installment of the erotic series Angel guts, made up of nine films produced between 1978 and 1994, based on the director’s own manga. This is about two hospital patients who try to rape a nurse during her night shift and when she returns home she finds her photographer boyfriend in the act with one of his models.
To end the round of misfortunes, she is run over by a stockbroker who takes her away to abuse her and hold her until she is able to forgive him. The typical one for the whole family at Christmas.
Antiporno (2016)
Sion Sono it is the spearhead of the new resurrection of pinku eiga, pushing the rules of the classic genre to the limit, making a totally devastating and feminist rereading of the original Roman Porno. The explosive and colorful film recounts the toxic relationship that a well-known and beautiful actress maintains with her assistant, until the director yells “cut!” and the film breaks, splitting into several layers of delirium.
Aroused By Gimnopedies (imunopedi ni midareru, 2016)
Isao Yukisada directs a low-hour film director’s drift as he wanders the streets of Tokyo and decides to sleep with one woman after another trying to regain his lost self-esteem, while his lead actress decides to abandon her latest project and your only means of income is in jeopardy.
Wet Woman in the Wind (Kaze ni nureta onna, 2016)
Director Akihiko Shiota takes care of another drama about a drifting male entertainer all about sex healing. The playwright Kosuke Takasuke decides to leave the city to live away from society, but everything changes when he meets Shiori, who takes an immediate interest in him.
Dawn of the Felines (Mesunekotachi, 2017)
Director Kazuya Shiraishi tells the story of three escort girls who live in Ikekuburo, Tokyo and work for the same scort service.
Each one has her story but none is particularly unhappy in her job, prostitution is simply her way of life and is completely normalized, except that it interferes with her ability to establish relationships, not only in practice, but also emotionally, leaving them in the middle of the loneliness of urban life.
White Lily (Howaito rirî, 2017)
Hideo Nakata dea black haired ghost girls and horror to totally change gender and tell the stormy relationship between Tokiko, a famous potter, and her assistant. The torrid romance with her lover Haruka falters when Tokiko agrees to train a young student named Satoru.