Tag: Nikkatsu

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Features Live Action Movies

Scars of the Sun
(Taiyo no Kizu Ato,
太陽のきずあと)

Director – Chusei Sone – 1981 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 99m

***1/2

A young gang leader whose father is a successful literary figure finds himself battling against a rival – part of the Chusei Sone Double Feature on Blu-ray from Monday, July 27th.

NSFW

A dull, industrial pumping sound can be heard in the background. A man in a white raincoat and a hat waits. The wind blows his open coat. He takes out a cigarette. Down the road, another man steals a white car from a garage explaining, “I’ve a funeral to attend.” He picks up the raincoat and hat man.

Another car, red, heading in the opposite direction on the other side of the highway, U-turns and joins him. Both drive recklessly until the white one narrowly avoids a collision with a bicycle.

The other man asks Shuhei (Keniichi Kaneda), in the raincoat and hat, what they do about the now somewhat battered car. Shuhei says it can be fixed using his father’s money. When he tries to sign in for the funeral, he’s told to leave because the deceased wouldn’t have wanted him to attend.

They gather with others at a bar. His companion, Kobayashi, explains that Sugeru was so good at driving that he, Kobayashi, fell asleep.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Love Hotel
(Rabu Hoteru,
ラブホテル)

Director – Shinji Somai – 1985 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 88m

***1/2

After violently taking out the stress of yakuza business debts on a call-girl, a man finds her two years later and attempts to rekindle a relationship – roman porno is out on UK Blu-ray on, Monday, July 22nd

NSFW.

Tokyo. Muraki (Minori Terada) phones Milky Way from room 301, all dark suit and shades, obviously a gangster, to be is told a girl, Yumi, will be with him in 10 minutes. Only, a flashback reveals him as the owner of a publishing office, his stairwell to his small office premises blocked by a yakuza, another of whose number, he discovers on entering, is forcibly having sex with Muraki’s wife (Kiriko Shimizu) while two further fellow yakuza look on approvingly. Later, he considers throwing himself out of the third storey window of his unfurnished office with “for rent” signs, but swats a fly and thinks better of jumping.

When Yumi (Noriko Hayami) arrives at 301, her initial euphoria at Y100 000 for two hours is dispelled when Muraki unexpectedly slaps handcuffs on her, pulls a knife, slashes at the bedsheets and her clothing to undress her than violates her with a dildo, later cutting the skin between her breasts as she writhes orgasmically.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Million Ryo Pot
aka
Tange Sazen
And The Pot
Worth A Million Ryo
(Tange Sazen
Yowa:
Hyakuman Ryo
No Tsubo,
丹下左膳余話
百萬両の壺)

Director – Sadao Yamanaka –1935 – Japan – 92m (longest available version)

***1/2

Period drama in which various characters palm a worthless pot off on others only to later discover it’s extremely valuable – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2023 between Friday, 3rd February and Friday, 31st March

A gorgeous restoration by Nikkatsu, this populist potboiler from 1935 is an excuse to show off the talents of chambara star Denjiro Okochi as the eponymous ronin Tange Sazen, who at one point cheerfully admits himself to be a freeloader off of archery club hostess and geisha house owner Ofuji (Kiyozo).

The equally eponymous pot, however, is in the film from the start, as after he has passed it off to his brother Genzaburo (Kunitaro Sawamura) who has married the daughter of a swordsman in Edo, a regional Yagyu Lord is informed that the pot’s glaze conceals a map to the whereabouts of a treasure chest containing a million ryo hidden by one of his ancestors shortly. Unaware of its considerable value, the latter’s wife Hagino (Hanai Ranko) is embarrassed by this piece of worthless junk and wants her husband to throw it in the shed, so she doesn’t have to look at it.… Read the rest