Customer Reviews

Skin Art [VHS]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Will is a tattoo artist obsessed with his imprisonment and torture as a Vietnam War POW. Will earns his living tattooing Southeast Asian women who have been purchased and imported to work in a local Oriental bordello. Will creates distinctive tattoos covering each woman's entire back and shoulders. The tattooing process is painful and reinforces the women's submissiveness -- a part of bordello training. The bordello's customers find the tattoos artistic and stimulating. Then Will meets Lily, a new arrival ...

The branding by tattooing depicted in this film does happen. Rather than being purchased, Oriental women sometimes are lured from their villages with false promises of legitimate employment, then are kidnapped and forced to work in bordellos or for private owners. Distinctive tattoos mark the women as slaves who are shunned by Oriental society -- a de facto form of bondage.

Branding by tattooing [or (less often) by actual thermal branding] sometimes occurs in United States' society. More often, women are bound by indebtedness [e.g., (boyfriend's) vehicle loan payments and credit card payments] and several hungry young children in an economy offering few other opportunities.

I thought this was a very poorly written movie; it could have and should have been a lot better. The acting was also poor.

An artist and former POW finds tortured solace while tattooing "Imported Ladies of the Night," with images of one of his captors deep within his psyche leading the needle. Well-constructed flashbacks give perspective as to why he can't forgive himelf for a crime he didn't commit, and why the perfect woman for the perfect tattoo continually elude him. Quirky. Beautiful "skin art" throughout film.