21 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting series marred by censorship, wrong aspect ratio, April 15, 2005
This review is from: Angel Guts (DVD)
This series of erotic movies from the Japanese Nikkatsu Studios is collectively entitled "Angel Guts". The movies center around the theme of rape. Although they were meant to be exploitative, they do elicit more thoughtful insights on the subject than the genre would suppose. They portray rape as violent and brutish but they do not sensationalise or glorify it. All 5 movies end tragically, either in death or ruined lives. It's almost like soft-porn with a conscience. As soft-porn stories go, they are pretty interesting. My quibble here is with the censorship.
Although we do get scenes of sexual violence, there is absolutely no depiction of genitalia or penetration to conform with Japanese law. Where these inadvertently appear onscreen, they are digitally fogged away. In fact, look at Chapter 9 (Pillow Talk) in "Red Vertigo" and you see a huge foggy cloud over the 2 actors' lower halves. To me this kind of censorship is ludicrous, laughable and totally unacceptable, especially in a DVD release that touts itself as a Collector's Edition. Even if it was censored in Japan, this DVD is an international version and we are not subject to Japanese laws. Why couldn't the producers have sourced for the original negatives? Why are we being foisted with censored prints? What we have left are some scenes of toplessness. Although it's unrated, it would probably merit an R-rating, mainly for the violence. Because it's meant to be erotica, there are some scenes included simply for titillation purposes. Some fairly kinky scenes include a girl using a condom-wrapped egg as a toy, and another involving a wooden table leg. If you like weirdness, there's one where a girl gets peed on. And likes it.
A major problem with the set is that the transfers are all over the place. The first 3 films, "High School Coed", "Red Classroom" and "Nami" are supposed to be in 2.35:1 format. However "High School Coed" only begins with the credit sequence in 2.35:1 before suddenly changing to a cropped 1.85:1. The other two are transferred in their Original Aspect Ratio (Anamorphic). "Red Porno" and "Red Vertigo" are supposed to be in 1.85:1 but have been cropped into 1.78:1 to make a perfect fit for widescreen TV. The transfer is also pretty dark with much of the darker scenes appearing almost black. A lot of action that takes place in the dark is hard to make out. The worst culprit is "High School Coed". There is scattered dirt, nicks and circular imprints throughout. Image quality tends to be on the soft side. Colors are pretty good. Optional English subtitles are provided. Sound is the original 2.0 mono or a remixed 5.1 surround. Many of the actors look like they were dubbed post-production. There's no booklet, leaflet or anything to tell you what's on the DVDs or even the running time for each movie. The only way to find out is to play the discs. I'd say rent it before you decide to buy. I for one do not keep censored videos as part of my collection. Damn.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Violated Angels, July 14, 2008
This review is from: Angel Guts (DVD)
High School Coed (1978)
As I have written about in some of my earlier reviews, The Japanese film industry suffered quite a set back in the 1960s due to television. In fact ticket sells had dropped by half from 1957 to 1963. This trend continued throughout the decade and continued on into the 1970s. During the 1970s some film companies went bankrupt, while Nikkatsu almost turned completely to the making of Pink Films, also called Roman Porno, which in the West would most likely be described as Soft Porn. Of course most of these films lacked true substance, but some directors, like those few during the 1950s who were forced to make formulaic Program Pictures, tried to overcome the limitations of plot, quality of actors, and money to create something new and interesting and quite possibly thought provoking. The director who is probably the most famous, infamous?, for doing this is Wakamatsu Koji, however, other screenwriters such as Ishii Takashi has tried their hand at this as well.
Before creating his Evil Dead Trap, Black Angel, and Flower & Snake screenplays among others, Ishii's first screenplays were the Angel Guts series with High School Coed being the first in 1978. The film centers on three friends: Sadakuni, Kajima, and Kawashima. For kicks the three men indulge in robbing and raping women (Kajima and Kawashima do anyway. Sadakuni appears to be impotent). However, one day when he is on an outing with his sister Megu, Kawashima prevents Kajima from raping a girl named Tsuchiya Nami. He prevents the rape, not so much because he doesn't want the girl to be raped, but because he does not want his sister to learn that he partakes in such activities. This eventually leads to a fight which results in Kawashima having the rape the girl in front of his two friends in order for Kajima to forgive him. As common in this type of film, Kajima falls in love with Nami after he rapes her.
Angel Guts: High School Coed is a film that screams over the top indulgence in violent erotic desire for its, one would assume, primarily male audience. As stated earlier, it differs little from other films in this genre,but the director Sone does try to incorporate some interesting camera work and the monochromatic dream sequences are well done, but, as a whole, there is really not much to say about this film.
Red Classroom (1979)
During a small "screening," basically a room of middle-aged men, of a blue film, erotic photographer Muraki Tetsuro falls quickly infatuated with the young woman in the film. Her performance is so real that Muraki becomes obsessed with having her for himself. Muraki eventually finds her when he calls up a love hotel for a photo shoot and discovers that she is the receptionist. He quickly goes to talk to her and eventually the two end up in a hotel room with the woman, Nami, stripping and wanting to prostitute herself for Muraki. He turns down her proposition and states that he will meet her the next day. However, Muraki is arrested the next day after the police discover that a fifteen-year-old girl had posed for some of his photos. These circumstances leave Nami standing in the rain waiting for Muraki, but instead of heading home, she takes another man to a love hotel. Will Muraki have the chance to meet Nami again? Who knows, but for most viewers of this film that question is hardly an issue.
The second film in the Angel Guts series, Red Classroom is more sexually graphic than its predecessor High School Coed (1978), however, unlike that film in which women, even very young girls, are preyed upon by men, in this film the tables are turned a bit and true sexual predator is Nami. In her scene with the business man in the hotel it appears that the director is trying to display the potency of female sexuality versus that of male sexuality when the man becomes weaker with each successive organism as Nami gains strength. The business man in fact seems frightened of Nami's desire as he is trying to rest.
Another interesting aspect of this film is that it references itself. I have stated before in some of my previous reviews that some pink film directors, namely Wakamatsu Koji, attempted to bring a more artistic edge to his soft porn creations. However, because the main point of pink films is to titillate, often their more artistic endeavors will be ignored by their audiences. Muraki laments that it he created photos or a film that he considered artistically satisfying, it would either be shelved or heavily edited so it could satisfy target audiences. Unfortunately this aspect of the film is quickly dropped and it devolves into quite a mess.
While it is a better film than High School Coed, There is really little that makes a Red Classroom a film that should be seen by those interested in seedier Japanese films that came out when the Japanese film industry was in a giant lull. Definitely, if they can be found, check out Wakamatsu's offerings before delving into this series.
Nami (1979)
Nami, the third film based on manga writer/film director Ishii Takashi's series Angel Guts follows the life of its key protagonist Tsuchiya Nami who, in this film, works as a reporter for a popular woman's magazine. Young, pretty, and ambitious, Nami wants to rise to the pinnacle of her profession trotting over those who she believes can aid her in her plight. Knowing that controversial subjects tend to draw the most reader interest, Nami, with the encouragement of her editor, takes it upon herself to interview rape victims who would prefer to let their pasts be buried in the sands of time. To make matters worse, Nami and her crew browbeat their "interviewees" until they agree to the interview, or, if they outright refuse Nami, their pictures are taken without their knowledge and published anyway.
Confident in her ability, Nami begins to visit the seedier areas of Tokyo, frequenting such places whose main attractions are live sex shows. After failing in an attempt to interview an S&M stage actress, Nami watches her show and accidentally bumps into a fellow sporting dark sunglasses. This fellow is Muraki, once a publisher for a large publishing house; he has now turned to writing stories for a porn magazine whose readership also is interested in the subject of rape. Joining up in a loose comradeship with Muraki, Nami goes to interview a nurse whose rape was covered up by the hospital in which she worked because a doctor committed the crime. And within those environs, Nami will learn the true horror of what the rape victims faced.
With the film Nami, Tanaka Noboru takes the directorial helm from Sone Chusei who directed the first two films of the Angel Guts series, and thereby creates a darker work. There are some scenes of consensual sex in the film, but for the most part, rape scenes make up the majority of the sex scenes in this film and they are quite brutal. However, while sex and rape were probably the main draw for the audience of this film--and the other Angel Guts films as well--a second rape, one performed by the media, plays a very important role in this film. Insensitive and concerned only with ratings, the brutality and humiliation experienced by the rape victims is given a diaphanous quality which means little to the audience who are being inundated by stories of rape and violence. A truly unpleasant film to watch, Nami paints a grim picture of violence and media in modern Japan.
Red Porno (1981)
Red Porno (1981) is the fourth film in the series Angel Guts based of manga writer/director: Ishii Takashi's series Angel Guts. This time around, Tsuchiya Nami works as a salesgirl at an upscale department store. Although Nami's sex life seems to be pretty standard, she is sleeping with her supervisor, Nami seems to gain most of her sexual pleasure through masturbation which is depicted on screen a few times during the short duration of the film. However, besides sleeping with her married love and masturbating, Nami goes on bit of an adventure when she substitutes for her friend Hitomi in an S&M magazine shoot. Not having done anything like that before, she was quite shy and embarrassed while trussed up in front of the cameramen. However, because of her embarrassment, the issue of Red Porno in which her photo shoot appears becomes a top seller and the magazine wants her to work with them again. Unfortunately, the magazine also falls in the hands of her boss/lover.
Red Porno also focuses on a young voyeur who came to Tokyo with high ambitions, but whose spirits were crushed by the stress of the city. Now he stays holed up in his filthy apartment reading porn and watching a highly sexual schoolgirl masturbate herself with a egg stuffed in a condom and three sharpened pencils. After coming across Nami's photo in the issue of Red Porno, he becomes obsessed with her and Nami acquires a stalker.
The first three Angel Guts films, while being truly nothing more than low budget soft-core pornography, held aspirations of being a bit artistic within the realm of pink film, but Red Porno, on the other hand, is a raw and dirty pink film that pushes the envelope as far as it can without letting it fall off the table. The scene with Chie the schoolgirl and a later scene in which Nami has intercourse with a leg of her electric kotatsu are not so much titillating as sad and soiling because of their displays of unbridled sexual energy with no true loving way to extinguish it. Instead of human beings, they have intercourse with inanimate objects because there is no true warmth in the relationships they have established.
Red Vertigo (1988)
Red Vertigo is the fifth film in the filmic versions of Ishii Takashi's manga series Angel Guts, and unlike the previous four films which were directed by...
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