Taking pointers from regular Twitch reader Al Edwards who posts over at DVDManiacs.net Forum...
Following on from Media Blasters recent release of Konuma's 1974 original 'Hana to Hebi' (Flower and Snake '74, as they called it) which was a great film and a great disc too, Kino have four more for us. Personally, 'Wife to be Sacrificed' has long been on my list of things to catch up on, so it's nice to see it come along with another addition to make it more worthwhile to those out there like me - Hideo Nakata's 2000 documentary on such films, 'Sadistic and Masochistic'.
'Cloistered Nun : Runa's Confession' (Shudojo Runa no kokuhaku, 1976).
'Erotic Diary of An Office Lady' (OL kanno nikki: Ah! Watashi no naka de, 1977).
'Tattooed Flower Vase' (Kashin no irezumi: ureta tsubo, 1976).
'Wife to be Sacrificed'* (Ikenie fujin, 1974) plus 'Sadistic and Masochistic' Documentary from 2000 by Hideo Nakata.
*It's worth noting that Kino have released 'Wife to be Sacrificed' before, now it's a reissue with the additional documentary by Nakata.
Masaru Konuma Information at Wikipedia.
Thank you Logboy for this bit of news. I'm definitely interested in picking these up as I'm a big fan of the Nikkatsu "Roman Porn" movies of the 70s and 80s. So far only the obscene stuff like the "Tenshi no Harawata/Angel Guts" series and the cult favorites like "Hana To Hebi" have made it on R1 with perhaps a few select others. I don't recall if "David No Hoshi/Star of David" is a Nikkatsu film but that is also out on R1. Hopefully more Nikkatsu films will be brought over soon.
I'd say it's time for more Wakamatsu Koji stuff!! :-)
a subbed edition of shojo geba-geba has been on my want list for ever
I think the reason most of the pinky violence took off, and by taking off I mean people showed interest in it was because a lot of its really fun to watch. But I think the torture type stuff like Caterpillar mentioned above is maybe a little rough for the average person. I don't think a lot of people want to watch a woman getting tortured. Sex and Fury, and Yakuza Tale did have stuff like that in it, but they also were more like regular movies. You don't feel like a perv watching it. Or you can watch it with friends or girlfriend. Its like hey its Kill Bill. It caught on with more of the mainstream which is what these titles need to be successful.
The Pinky collection was in Best Buy, Borders, Virgin etc. Its just it didn't sell. Probably due to the price. I think its a lot easier to sell a single DVD then try and sell a series of movies that retails for 100 bucks. But also if your company is relying on 1 titles to make or break them then you have other problems then just that one release. The Pinky collection didn't doom Panik House.
If you think that all of the titles on my wish list are "torture porn" you clearly haven't seen many or even any of them. The titles I gave are either the ones used on the underground movie trade circuit or literal translations of the Japanese titles, which, as you may know, like to be rather on the sensationalistic side. There are 5 of them that I'd personally put alongside SHOGUN'S JOY OF TORTURE, with only CRUELTY OF THE FEMALE INQUISITION reaching the extreme levels of sadism that made OXEN SPLIT TORTURE infamous. It is, after all, an anthology movie about the subject of vaginal mutiliation. That one's not one to watch with your girl, unless she's a real special girl, that is. Most of the rest is just your standard S&M;stuff, nothing more or less extreme than Takashi Ishii's FLOWER AND SNAKE movies, really. NOBORU ANDO'S SEX AND ESCAPE CHRONICLES and SHOGUN GENERAL'S 21 DOLLS are actually both sex comedies without any torture or mean stuff whatsoever. SHOGUN GENERAL'S 21 DOLLS is something I'd compare to SEX AND ZEN.
...two things. firstly, my first personal experience of hearing about romanporno was some years back, maybe even in the 90s, where there was a huge revival in the genres fanbase - with a huge appetite from women. don't forget, 'roman' abbreviates 'romantic'. the films are intended to be films as we know them, but with a strong central theme of sex, and they're not specifically to be termed porn in a direct sense - that is, it's inappropriate (but easy short-hand) to describe them as such, and it's not appropriate to apply western experiences and models of understanding directly onto them. it's important to remember not to be too determined to place a western understanding directly onto something in order that it could potentially overpower the possibility of a new perspective on how they're understood and appreciated by audiences outside their home territory. japans film industry has been reliant upon such films in the past, has a taste for them still, and yet they still turn out stuff more directly describably as pornography, clearly... yes, marketing is smart and audacious, sensationalist often in japan, and the films can be wild, but they're something to be walked through with caution and interest in order to learn something new, experience something truly different.