PINK POWER STRIKES BACK!

In the West, porn is a dirty no-no; but in Japan, numerous directors and actors have gotten their start making pink films, a unique genre of softcore sex films that range from bawdy comedies to straight-forward erotica. 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 on 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.

Last year’s PINK POWER program, presented by the New York Asian Film Festival and the US pink film distributor, Pink Eiga, was a huge success and so this year we’ve teamed up again to present two pink films in....PINK POWER STRIKES BACK!

JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR PART 2
(2004, in Japanese with English subtitles, 60 minutes)

The hit of last year’s PINK POWER line-up was JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR PART 1 so it only makes sense that this year we give unto you JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR PART 2!!!! The first JWND was a take on Pasolini’s TEOREMA, in which a young man brings home a woman from a party and his life turns to crap. JWND2 takes place in a sideways universe, much like the final season of Lost. Here, the main character goes home from the party with a different woman, and his life still turns to crap. Lesson: don’t go home with girls from pink films.

Yutaka Ikejima, the acclaimed director of JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR PART 1 and PART 2, has directed over 100 pink films (and appeared in an additional 50), earning him the nickname “Mr. Pink” in his native Japan. In a newspaper interview, he was quoted as saying, “This [pink eiga] is my lifework because it lets me earn money, play leading roles and touch naked women.” It’s the rare artist who has this kind of clarity of vision.

GROPER TRAIN: SCHOOL UNIFORM HUNTER
(2007, in Japanese with English subtitles, 60 minutes)

One of the world’s most famous series of films are the pink “Groper Train” movies, mostly directed by Yôjirô Takita, Academy-Award-winning director of DEPARTURES. This installment in the series is a standalone directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu, who co-directed VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL as well as the cult films STACY and ZOMBIE DEFENSE FORCE. And, unlike many of the “Groper Train” movies, groping on a train actually forms a vital part of the plot. Asami is a high school girl curious about sex but unfortunately she gets involved with a scam artist who hustles men for money after enticing them to grope her on the subway. Asami is the co-star of MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD, ANCIENT DOGOO GIRL, ROBO-GEISHA, MACHINE GIRL, and many other splattery low budget whacked classics and she actually won a pink film award for “Best Actress” this year, albeit for a different movie.