PINK POWER: PINK EIGA PRESENTS JAPAN’S UNKNOWN FILM INDUSTRY

There is no Western equivalent to a pink film, Japan’s long lived softcore sexploitation films that walk a line between bawdy comedies and straight-forward erotica, while occasionally veering wildly to one side or the other in order to satisfy any number of erotic fixations. Despite the American taboo against porn as a genre, Japan’s pink films are considered legitimate cinema with quality production values, clever storytelling, and numerous cast and crew members who have gone on to mainstream success such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Academy Award-winning director Yojiro Takita (DEPARTURES), Ryuichi Hiroki (his film, VIBRATOR, was selected by the Village Voice as one of the Best Undistributed Movies of 2003) and even Masayuki Suo, who brought audiences something as mainstream as SHALL WE DANCE?, started in pink."

Since the end of World War II, eroticism had been creeping into mainstream Japanese cinema, and by the time pink films emerged, they had a ready and waiting audience, primed to indulge in anything the pink filmmakers would throw at them. Originally dubbed “eroduction” when they first appeared, pink films quickly filled a void in Japan’s conservative cinema scene and proved wildly popular. Satoru Kobayashi’s immensely successful 1962 film FLESH MARKET began the pink film cycle, which eventually saw the movies becoming Japan’s most prolific film genre of the 60’s and 70’s, decades when nearly a third of all movies produced in Japan were pink.

Maintaining tradition, pink films are still shot on 16 or 35mm, never video, and are edited on flatbed editing tables with their sound transferred on old school mag stock, not newfangled digital equipment. Directors are given between $10,000 and $30,000 and told to shoot a film in 3 – 7 days, whatever is left over from the budget is their salary. Running about an hour each, pink films are still released theatrically as triple bills on an ever-shrinking circuit of “pink” cinemas. Producers stay out of the way, which is why so many young directors get started shooting pink: as long as they have enough erotic content and turn their film in on time they can try anything from horror, to comedy to genuinely moving romances and dramas. Adhering to Japan’s strict censorship laws which prohibit showing genitals or pubic hair, pink films have found a way to imply full frontal nudity through the use of clever camera angles and, occasionally, optically printed fogging and mosaics to obscure all genitals.

The New York Asian Film Festival is proud to salute this unique, and largely unseen, genre by teaming up with American distribution company, Pink Eiga, to screen two programs of two movies each that crack the door open on the wild world of Japan’s unseen pink cinema. 

PROGRAM 1:
GROPER TRAIN: SEARCH FOR THE BLACK PEARL 
(1984, directed by Yojiro Takita, 66 minutes, digital projection)
JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR PART 1
(2004, directed by Yutaka Ikejima, 60 minutes, digital projection)

Yojiro Takita won an Oscar for 2008’s DEPARTURES, but you wouldn’t guess it from this hilariously smutty sex comedy that follows a series of people seeking out a priceless Chinese black pearl. That sounds like the plot of a legit movie until it’s revealed that the only clue to the treasure’s whereabouts is a print of a woman’s… well, let’s just say it’s one of the parts pink audiences aren’t allowed to see. From that point on, it’s an oversexed search (much of which happens on the titular train) for additional “prints” that might just lead the way to the pearl – but hey, even if no one finds it we can rest assured they had a great time looking!

Following that is 2004’s JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR PART 1, arguably one of the raciest pink films in the genre’s long history. A riff on Pasolini’s TEOREMA, it involves an oversexed young woman who, when her husband proves impotent, takes out her sexual frustration on her surprisingly willing in-laws, breaking down all incest taboos one by one, until she’s turned the entire family inside out. The result is a bold, explicit free-for-all of perversion that somehow manages to be simultaneously endearing and creepy as it progresses toward its unbelievably vulgar (and hilarious) conclusion. While shocking and sometimes cringe-inducing, the director’s light touch transforms this perv-fest into something almost heartwarming.

PROGRAM 2:
BLIND LOVE 
(2005, directed by Daisuke Goto, 64 minutes, digital projection)
GROPER TRAIN: WEDDING CAPRICCIO
(directed by Yojiro Takita, 68 minutes, digital projection)

With its massive library of titles, legions of devoted fans, and even a few award ceremonies under its loosely-buckled belt, pink films show no sign of slowing down, as this pairing of a modern and classic example make perfectly clear. Acclaimed pink director Daisuke Goto (A LONELY COW CRIES AT DAWN) brings us BLIND LOVE, which “sees” a young blind woman fall in love with a charming ventriloquist’s voice, but then begins dating his friend without realizing it’s the wrong man! Featuring a memorable cameo from the late Horyu Nakamura (A LONELY COW CRIES AT DAWN), this charming case of mistaken identities proves hilarious and, actually, somewhat touching.

In Academy Award-winning director Yojiro Takita’s second GROPER TRAIN film, GROPER TRAIN: WEDDING CAPRICCIO, a composer, a politician, and countless others get caught up in a variety of capers involving a diamond tooth, a false wedding, and a lost inheritance. Soon, everyone’s up to their ears (among other body parts) in lies, deceit, and treachery as they try to strike it rich. Takita even throws in a few genuine thrills (and kills!), but truthfully, with a title like GROPER TRAIN, you know what you’re in for. Except for the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND references, of course.