The term "pink movie" originated because of the amount of naked flesh bared on-screen during these films. Although even Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest film studio, used the term 'pornography' to refer to their pink films of the 1970s, they were strictly soft-core, due to the strict censorship laws prevalent in Japan up until the 1990s. Pubic hair, genitals and full frontal nudity were forbidden, causing many headaches for the budding pink film director. Yet these rules had a hidden benefit, as we shall see later, in pushing directors to develop the range of perverse themes and erotic ideas which they depicted on-screen. The frustrations of strict censorship drove these films into thematic areas considered too demented or politically incorrect by Western directors. Hand-in-hand with bizarre themes came the development of many new, stylish techniques of cinematography and scripting, which accounts for much of the modern day appeal of these movies, as well as their continuing influence on successive waves of Japanese directors.
It's also worth bearing some of the economic factors which motivated the production of pink films. These were not secret, shady enterprises on the margins of the Japanese film industry. According to some sources, from 1965-1973 pink movies amounted to as much as half of Japan's total domestic film product. These movies were considered successful by every filmic benchmark - style of direction, storytelling, acting and commercial appeal. At the pink of the pink boom, there were reputedly about 500 adult cinemas operating in Tokyo, and while it's true that the films failed to attract dating couples, as had been hoped for by studio bosses, there was little social stigma attached to a man's visiting such cinemas on his own. The Japanese public's view on sex, erotica and pornography might seem considerably more open-minded than in many Western countries, given that sex in Japan is considered natural and healthy, free of taboo or guilt associations.
The strongest attraction of these films is that they will give you a hit that you can't get anywhere else. To flesh out this point I'll be considering the halcyon days of pinku eiga, running roughly from 1971-1982. This era was marked by the entry into the marketplace of the bigger, mainstream studios, particularly Nikkatsu and Toei. Nikkatsu coined the phrase "Roman Porno" (an abbreviation of "Romantic Pornography") for their new venture, squeezing out most of the competition with their big budget sex films.
The major importance of these shifts for the pink movie fan is that this period saw, for the first time, talented directors at the helm of generously budgeted productions, over which they had a very large degree of artistic latitude. Provided that directors included generous amounts of nudity (officially a minimum of four scenes an hour) they were basically allowed free reign over storylines, visual style and scripting. Not surprisingly this freedom allowed for a creative boom within a previously limited genre. Tatsumi ('King Of Nikkatsu Porn') Kumashiro said in his acceptance speech at the 1972 "Kinema Jumpo" awards ceremony: "If I can shoot what I like, without the pressure of how it will turn out, I am motivated." He went on to become the most consistently successful director in Japan's cinematic history.
A major allure of the best pink movies is that they transcend their genre and are simply great movies in their own right. A further attraction is the uniquely Japanese cultural slant on offer. Due to the strict censorship laws prohibiting penetration or genital shots, the movies developed what Patrick Macias (in his book "Tokyoscope") aptly terms a "polymorphous perversity". The depiction of erotica became highly imaginative and varied, in contrast to the largely genital-centric movies made in the West. Sex was mingled with sadism, politics, religion, violence and countless other themes in order to feed and fuel the frustrated imaginations of the moviegoers of the time. Even viewed today, the lurid themes of movies such as Norifumi Suzuki's "Star Of David" (son inherits his father's propensity for rape and torture) or Koji ('Godfather Of Pink') Wakamatsu's "Go Go Second Time Virgin" (boy and girl fall in love before commiting suicide together after he fails to rape her) are hardly within the scope of even the boldest Western film directors. Yet no matter how politically incorrect their subject matter may be, these films are helmed with intelligence and vision, never losing sight of their themes in the flurry of nudity on offer. Perhaps most excitingly for the viewer, they tackle such topics utterly unapologetically and with no punches pulled. Suzuki depicts a scene in which a goody-two-shoes schoolgirl is forced to masturbate to climax in front of her male captor, while he simultaneously plays back for her the trite and na븎e speech she has made on TV extolling the virtues of the Japanese education system. Masaru Konuma shows us a young couple, fresh from a botched suicide pact, being forced into sex games with their husband and wife abductors. Scenes like this can seem cold and cruel, but there is a thirsting for truths lying at the core of mankind's twisted sexuality that is sadly lacking in movies from the West.
Some of the pink films are simply jaw-droppingly beautiful to look at. Take for example Konuma's "Wife To Be Sacrificed", which was Nikkatsu's first big successful foray into the theme of S&M and also the film which consolidated actress Naomi Tani's vaunted position as 'Queen Of S&M'. The action takes place largely in the Japanese countryside, beautifully photographed in all its lush glory. The colours of the countryside are effectively contrasted with the harsh asceticism of the punishments meted out on Ms.Tani by her cruel on-screen husband in a broken-down cabin. Norifumi Suzuki's "School Of The Holy Beast" literally bleeds from the screen with vivid, gorgeous colour compositions depicting the blasphemous goings on within a corrupt community of nuns. Kumashiro uses rain to great effect in "Woman With Red Hair", both to accentuate the hemmed-in intensity of the main couples' relationship and also to add an element of eloquent sadness and despair to their situation. The rain is the instrument of their first meeting and becomes a recurring theme highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of their relationship.
Each director brought a brave new flavour to what had previously, by the end of the 1960s, become a fairly jaundiced and dead-end genre. Kumashiro's films have an extremely gritty, earthy feel to them, upbeat about their lowlife subjects, but without becoming overly romantic or sentimental. Konuma's movies are marked by a very stylistic approach to cinematography and an imaginative attitude to storylines and scripting.
Koji Wakamatsu quit Nikkatsu in 1965 after the studio failed to support him during the controversy surrounding his film "Secret Act Behind Walls", which was mistakenly entered for the Berlin Film Festival. Free from the studio system Wakamatsu went wild, directing a total of 10 films in 1969 alone. His films are conspicuous for lurid titles such as "Contemporary History Of Rape In Japan" and "When The Embryo Goes Poaching". They are usually low-budget, filmed in only two or three locations, featuring unusual editing techiques, striking choice of camera positions and jerky handheld footage. His themes are far reaching and meet in weird combinations. In "Ecstasy Of The Angels" the nihilist, rebel protagonists discuss revolutionary ideals and party organising whilst screwing. Wakamatsu's unlikely collisions are often bizarre, sometimes successful and always compelling to watch.
Norifumi Suzuki came to the pink movie world from the action movie arena, having directed many stars of the calibre of Sonny Chiba. He brought a keen freshness and a wide-eyed voyerism to the genre and is perhaps unrivalled in his knack of developing truly bizarre, perverse situations and upping their ante through strange and beautiful shot compositions. His films really box you around the head, though they are definitely not recommended viewing for couples!
There are plenty more directors worth a watch, including Chusei Sone, whose "Hellish Love" is so fairy tale in its romantic stylings that it's easy to forget that it's a Roman Porno. More then anything else, it's a story of doomed love, shot so sensitively that the nude scenes are almost purely aesthetic and barely arousing at all. The work of Noboru Tanaka is also interesting, especially as a kind of foil to Kumashiro's gritty stance. Tanaka's films are other-worldly and highly escapist in nature.
Suffice to say, in conclusion, that this was a fascinating, self-enclosed cinematic world, with its own rules and aesthetics. It was largely run by a group of self-made players with little in common except a strong, decadent and extremely Dionysian spirit toward towards filmmaking. If you appreciate a sense of adventure, reckless sensuality and wild imagination, then welcome to a club which rewards its members with the highest in entertainment value.
Jonny Chinchen, Tokyo, November 2004.
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