Four Nikkatsu Roman Porno by Masaru Konuma from Kino’s Kimstim In November 2007.

Reader Comments

1. Caterpillar 09/10/2007 @ 3:29am

   Nice. Really, really nice. I hope WIFE TO BE SACRIFICED will make use of the gorgeous new anamorphic transfer that was made for the Japanese DVD a little over a year ago. The old R1 DVD was pretty awful, burned in subtitles, letterboxed… Yuck! I hope this new release will be a significant upgrade. I do appreciate that they will include Nakata’s documantary. I’ve been curious what some of these directors and actresses have to say about their work for a while now.

   Of the other three films I have only seen what they call EROTIC DIARY OF AN OFFICE LADY. The original title is much more amusing but I guess AH! MY INSIDES wouldn’t go over so well on a DVD cover. Not one one Konuma’s best films, in my opinion, but maybe I’ll enjoy it better with subtitles.

2. JMaruyama 09/10/2007 @ 10:18am

   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.

3. logboy 09/10/2007 @ 10:30am

   james, discotek have licensed ‘star of david’ (aka ‘beautiful girl hunter’) for release in america (along with teruo ishii’s ‘bohachi’), but as i have the old japan shock dvd of the former, and there’s a factory boot based on the R2 J of the latter, it’s hard to see why they’ve opted for these admitedly well-known (or at least by notable directors) films over the slew of stuff still unsubbed anywhere, particularly in this genre.

4. Caterpillar 09/10/2007 @ 11:44pm

   Yes, Norifumi Suzuki’s STAR OF DAVID: BEAUTIFUL GIRL HUNTING is indeed a Nikkatsu production, which is interesting because he mostly worked for Toei. I wasn’t aware that Discotek had licensed this and Teruo Ishii’s PORNO PERIOD DRAMA: BOHACHI BUSHIDO for R1 releases. Another Twitch story I flat out missed? Oh, well. Anyway, I kind of agree with logboy that these are not the first titles that would have come to my mind when thinking about pinku/pinky films needing an official subtitled release. There’s a bunch of both Suzuki’s (TOKUGAWA SEX BAN, SHOGUN GENERAL’S 21 DOLLS, DOLLS OF THE SHOGUN’S HAREM) and Ishii’s (GENROKU ONNA KEIZU, http://www.ofdb.de/view.php?page=fassung&fid=3264&vid=165564) films of equal quality and importance (to me, at least) that are not available with subtitles in any shape or form. On the other hand, both STAR OF DAVID and BOHACHI BUSHIDO are undeniably great films (the latter may very well be my favorite pinky violence movie ever) and highly deserve a legitimate US release. Unlike with every other pinku/pinky release I won’t be able to guarantee I’ll pick these up, though, unless Discotek comes through extras-wise; which seems rather doubtful considering their track record for these films.

5. logboy 09/10/2007 @ 11:59pm

   caterpillar - no, you didn’t miss the story on discotek’s releases / licenses. as time has gone by, the things i pick out to write about have shifted somewhat… lots of these snippet things only really connect to issues i and other people have been over again and again, or they connect to relatively little online information in terms of past reviews and synopsis because they’re snippets a bit before the information kicks in and long after older reviews which seem a little unnecessary considering how well known these films are or how aware the core audience likely to be interested in them currently is… it just often doesn’t seem that there’s much to say beyond “it’s been licensed” (plus “why?” or “yay!") because the companies let slip on these snippets and don’t consider placing more into public realms (trailers) that far ahead, or even maximising their impact with what information they could give us, and how they do it. personally, as i’m on a learning curve i would still label “initial”, there’s few i could name that are worth picking out, but i know there’s at least one person who can be easily contacted that can give more recommendations than even the most lucrative company could suggest - films of high quality, historical value, fan appeal…

6. Caterpillar 09/11/2007 @ 3:39am

   Discotek are probably still doing what they originall said they’d do, which is to release films they are fans of themselves. Or himself, since it wouldn’t surprise me if Discotek were a one man operation. In that case I hope he has a well paying day job because otherwise I predict Discotek will go the way of Panik House sooner rather than later - especially if they start licensing insanely costly Toei stuff. The problem with releasing only things you’re a fan of is that it’s usually pretty damn hard to be a fan of something that hasn’t been extensively bootlegged for the past 20 years or so. The only way past that would be to go and do what I did and spend a couple grand on unsubbed Japanese ex-rental VHS tapes and try to get a grasp of the genre that way. I’m not entitled to make anyone’s business decisions for them but while films like STAR OF DAVID and BOHACHI BUSHIDO are great and well known among fans, they are doubly limited in their chances for commercial success. First because almost everyone interested in them already owns either an import DVD or a bootleg and second because both are already readily available on DVD in Japan, making it highly unlikely that any Japanese fans will buy the R1 release, something that reportedly significantly contributed to the sales numbers of previous pinky violence DVDs which got their worldwide DVD premiere via an US release.

7. logboy 09/11/2007 @ 6:22am

   it’s one of those situations i think about often - for me, it’s hard to definitively say that companies should or should not listen to those who could easily be said to trying to run their businesses for them.

   in some respects, considering how DVD companies are lacking in individual insight and solid practice in any one or more given aspects, you’ve either got to accept people speaking up about how they want to spend their money, or at least get it together enough to avoid giving them cause to speak up as much as possible. as for being a fan of something, then licensing it, i would say it’s possible to describe being a fan of ‘star of david / beautiful girl hunter’ as being a fan of different things and not necessarily just that film - a fan of nikkatsu, a fan of japanese exploitation, a fan of norifumi suzuki, etc etc… all indicators for other possible previously unheard of licenses.

   yes, japanese fans of pinky violence took great interest in american releases of films not released on DVD in japan - again, it’s odd to be a fan of what can be termed ‘world cinema’ but lack a global perspective towards the business opportunities (or lack of) with any given licence by a USA company of a foreign film.

8. bobmichaels 09/11/2007 @ 8:34am

   Do you guys really think that Tattooed Flower Vase or Runa’s Confession are going to outsell Star of David or Bohachi Code of Honor? I mean companies have to release movies that are good. Just cause something doesn’t have a DVD release or a subtitled version doesn’t mean its worth licensing. How many times have the same films gotten released over and over again? The reason being is because they sell good. Panik House/Cassanegra went under and they released a bunch of stuff that wasn’t out on DVD anywhere else.

9. logboy 09/11/2007 @ 9:01am

   no, i don’t think tattooed flower will or could necessarily outsell ‘star of david’ or ‘bahachi’ - but, for every film that has sold well in the past, there must be many films that could outsell them, as not everything has been released on any given format in the past but do have a past history or hidden audience hoping to see them… for every film that’s sold well time and time again, i would say it’s not always down to the quality of the film - there are far more reasons, trivial ones outside of the qualities of the film, which lead people to buy stuff again… crappy extras, slightly different picture qualities, crappy toys and so on. the list is practically endless; just because a films not yet appeared on DVD, doesn’t mean it’s no good - just because it has appeared on DVD before, doesn’t mean it’s great… plenty of dross out there released (i’ve seen ‘star of david’, hint hint) and plenty of classics or films connected to high sellers that haven’t appeared yet.

   for every film we’re seeing licensed again, especially by small labels and for films with relatively little chance of selling well, there’s potentially one lost chance to license and release something connected to a film of interest that could sell incredibly well, could open up new doors and so on. panik house didn’t necessarily go under cos they released stuff not released before, but it’s not down to the films they licensed as much as it’s down to the way the stores handled the sale-or-return of the ‘pinky violence collection’ sets - in recent kaijushakedown articles, it’s been shown to be the case that companies buying in stuff want things not seen on their records before. if every company relied upon rereleases of DVDs and nothing else, it would all stagnate pretty quickly - we’re close to that as it is - so let’s focus on opportunities to see stuff we haven’t seen before, be adventurous with wanting new stuff, rather than thinking other peoples opinions of worthwhile (i.e previous releases in other countries) necessarily dictates the quality of the content in those films. it’s also worth remembering that ‘sex and fury’ discs are changing hands as OOP DVDs on ebay for quite some money, people do come along later and register with releases they missed as they passed through, and that you do see subsequent companies trying to connect to the interest shown in stuff released by other companies - MB have started to chip in worth ‘hana to hebi’, kino are rekindling their releases beyond a couple of past ones with these four, discotek are getting in on the game, artsmagic threw in some stuff and we’ve seen increasing interest in festival appearances and DVD releases by ryuichi horiki and so on…

   i will take a chance to see something i’ve not seen before over something i’ve seen before, every time.

10. bobmichaels 09/11/2007 @ 10:17am

    So what do you suggest should be released then that hasn’t? Finding hidden gems is every companies dream but if it was that easy then everyone would be doing it. Panik House really hit on Sex and Fury and Female Yakuza Tale. But they bombed on every other title they released. Buying copyrights isn’t cheap, regardless of rather or not a title is know, or unknown. Its still very expensive. I think your better off going with known titles then unknowns.

    Lets look at the titles that Panik House gave up. Malformed is doing great, but do you think those Quick Draw movies are going to do that well? Do you really think buying the rights to 7 films and having 1 of them sell well is going to turn a profit? None of those films have DVD releases, which means you have to strike a new print, telecine it, remaster it, translate it, etc. All of that can cost almost or right at the same cost that the license does. And you still have to pay the license fee.

    Titles being released in the past doesn’t have much to do with the current buying habits of the stores like Best Buy, Borders, Etc. The problem with foreign films in stores like those is they just don’t sell that well. Another problem you have with stores such as Best Buy is the people working there don’t know anything about the movies. A big part of the more obscure sales have to come from word of mouth. The smaller companies can’t pay for advertising and try and shove a movie down someones throat like the big studios can.

11. logboy 09/11/2007 @ 10:37am

    again, the ‘pinky violence’ collection didn’t bomb, it was an issue of how the set was handled by retailers rather than the contentes. after all, ‘sex and fury’, ‘female yakuza tale’ and all those films in the ‘pinky violence collection’ stood in exactly the same position prior to release - a genre practically unheard of, films previously unseen, aspects of relatively unsung-but-well-known directors back catalogs. panik house did have some dodgy licenses - stuff released previously in HK, stuff too generic etc - but hit gold with getting interest in pinky violence going. every company has the chance to open up new doors for themselves and for other companies and film fans, but they need guts and brains to do it. as for going with known titles, once a title is known it’s potentially hyped, once everyone knows about it you’ve a bidding war. i don’t know the figures (as most won’t) of previously released titles and the quantities of sales in the USA or anywhere else, and i don’t know the licensing costs of japanese companies either - i suspect less well known title could potentially be dirt cheap, because there’s not sense people are buying into something they’re aware there’s a waiting audience for in specific terms, but there may be an interest for in more general terms.

    as for the cost versus the profic, a company like media blasters offers a good example, because what i’m essentially talking in favour of is appearances with english subtitles - plenty of films released in japan don’t have subs, but are well mastered (nikkatsu and geneon have issued lots of pink stuff on dvd in japan) and MB often don’t subsequently have to strike prints, do transfers at all. translation costs… well, i suspect some companies are taking their cue from boots they’ve seen and maybe taking advantage of a pre-done translation, and translations are almost automatically done (to my knowledge) for international sales and festival screenings.

    my argument for people getting adventurous and licensing or buying stuff not previously released but which they can sense an interest in actually points to a way to build awareness of these things with bricks and mortar stores… again, as i’ve said many times in the past, i’m not that keen on the focus on solid shops that don’t specialise in knowing what they’re selling, simply because it encourages less adventurous tastes from everyone, certain encourages generalised portrayals of films which may be far more diverse than the covers and selections show them to be. companies need to note the examples of anime, where things were plugged away at and built over time on what set them apart, rather than trying to do a quick cash in on generic crap for the sake of a quick buck. built it up, don’t grind it in our face - let us have it as it’s intended, because we’re searching for our own individual tastes and choies, not because they’re popular with millions of others…

12. Caterpillar 09/11/2007 @ 10:51am

    Here’s my personal wishlist:

    ZANKOKU IJOU GYAKUTAI MONOGATARI: GENROKU ONNA KEIZU (Teruo Ishii, 1970)
    TOKUGAWA SEX BAN (Norifumi Suzuki, 1972)
    SHOGUN GENERAL’S 21 DOLLS (Norifumi Suzuki, 1972)
    HELL-FATED COURTESAN (Noboru Tanaka, 1973)
    SECRET PROSTITUTE: CRUEL HELL (Shin’ichi Shiratori, 1973)
    FEMALE NINJA MAGIC: 100 TRAMPLED FLOWERS (Chusei Sone, 1974)
    STORY OF A NYMPHOMANIAC (Ikuo Sekimoto, 1975)
    SLAVE WIFE (Akira Kato, 1976)
    MOBORU ANDO’S SEX AND ESCAPE CHRONICLES (Noboru Tanaka, 1976)
    CRUELTY OF THE FEMALE INQUISITION (Shinya Yamamoto, 1976)
    THE GENERAL AND HIS EMPIRE OF JOY (Ikuo Sekimoto, 1976)
    FAIRY IN A CAGE (Kôyû Ohara, 1977)
    TORN PRIESTESS (Yuuji Makiguchi, 1977)
    SEX HUNTER (Toshiharu Ikeda, 1980)
    FEMALE TEACHER IN ROPE HELL (Shogoro Nishimura, 1981)
    FEMALE LEOPARD (Kôyû Ohara, 1985)
    DOLLS OF THE SHOGUN’S HAREM (Norifumi Suzuki, 1986)
    EXOTIC MASK IN HELL (Fumihiko Kato, 1988)
    PROSPERITY OF VICE (Akio Jissoji, 1988)

    If you think that’s a lot I’ll assure you that those are only those (out of the hundreds of pinku and pinky violence films I have watched over the past few years) that I’d give a 10/10 rating.

    I could make a list of about a hundred films I am convinced would be awesome and am dying to see but which have never had a home video release in Japan.

    Also, logboy, if you think Suzuki’s STAR OF DAVID movie is “dross” you really should take a look at the 5 episode anime series! I like the movie version as a sort of AMERICAN PSYCHO but set in Japan in the 70ies and randomly turning into a GOLGO 13 rip-off at one time. But the anime… truly… I like some bad stuff… but…

13. logboy 09/11/2007 @ 11:33am

    ...and that’s just a short list of wants from one fan of romanporno… personally, if companies are struggling to join the dots from one hit DVD to what proportionally likely directly and indirectly relates to literally dozens if not hundreds of related films, then i wonder what they’re doing. japanese directors, in particular, have been frequently beyond prolific. studios have hundreds of old things hidden away. imdb points to lists of films by directors, from studios, and films that have played festivals and won awards. and yet, what do we get? generic crap that never amounted to much, nobody asked indirectly or directly for and nobody bought much of in the first place or plain complained about the shitness of…

14. petcor80 09/11/2007 @ 11:58am

    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

15. bobmichaels 09/11/2007 @ 1:42pm

    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.

16. logboy 09/11/2007 @ 11:29pm

    the only specific from-the-source information (allegedly) i’ve read on the downfall of panik house stated it was an issue to do with the sale-or-return (i.e they were returned) of the ‘pinky violence collection’ sets. i’m with you on the point that it’s probably it being a set that made it hard to sell, but if you also consider ‘sex and fury’ was 10k copies pressed and only just went OOP after almost 2 years out there, it’s not exactly a huge seller - kaijushakedown recently stated you could expect most asian titles to sell upto and around 30k (mostly a lot lower, perhaps 10k i think) in america, with labels like DD managing to promote their stuff more successfully and sell upto and aroung 100k.

    again, there’s no concretes, as the sales figures aren’t really all released and they’re only one aspect of how well something does. again, companies barely do much with press and promotion, especially when it comes to trailers, so it’s hard to say that the most was made of any given opportunity to put something into peoples mind enough that they buy them.

    as for the content of romanporno / pink films versus pinky violence… well, yes i think there’s a lot of issues that people struggle to deal with concerning the content of the former compared to the latter. personally, there’s also many aspects within pinky violence that will be as questionable, but will have been reasonably justified to peoples minds at some point, because even a film like ‘kill bill’ will have had a certain amount of freshness to it and a certain amount of people will have been put off by the violence in it… even tarantino fans, potentially. thing is, a film like ‘kill bill’ has come from certain influences and they’re likely older films of course, and it wasn’t necessarily down to tarantino having been persuaded to appreciate certain films via any other film containing influences from more questionable material - it was down to his singllemindedness and ability to make his own decisions, think outside the box in terms of what his culturally acceptable aspects might be, and being open to what other cultures might deem acceptable, justifiable, applicable, or perfectly normal. otherwise, if you don’t have a large amount of “sod if, i’m making my own decisions” you’ll forever be waiting for a large majority to pop-up and give you the okay to live your own life.

    for me, part of the charm and interest in heading towards stuff that might well be deemed even partially questionable by western standards is to try to determine if those ideas we hold are as true or universal as might seem to be the case… create a contrasting opinion in order to test, confirm or change my own preconceived ideas. adventure is where it’s at, for me, not following others.

17. Caterpillar 09/12/2007 @ 3:56am

    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.

18. logboy 09/12/2007 @ 9:46am

    ...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.

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