Just by looking at its title, most American audiences should know what they’re getting into when they check out a film released by fledgling film distributor Pink Eiga. Names like S&M Hunter, Semen Demon or Whore Hospital are what most would expect from pink films, or Japanese softcore porn. They’re quirky-sounding, fetishistic and really bizarre—unless, of course, you enjoy watching a guy in a derby hat and an eyepatch lasso girls using his “spider technique.” If you do, that weirdness is so endearing that to call it strange is no longer a putdown but rather earnest praise. And yet, it’s unlikely that anyone outside of cult devotees will actually care about these fun and freaky cultural curios. This isn’t to say that something like S&M Hunter (1986) doesn’t deserve all the love it can get from prospective horndogs, uninitiated or not, just that it more than likely won’t. Forgive me for belaboring the obvious but it must be said that Japanese films exported into the US fall into one of two categories: A) the high art film that nobody but the privileged have access to and B) the low sub-category of genre films that are dismissed by most distributors and critics as being strictly for Nippophiles and otakus. With “Asian cinema” becoming more and more of a losing bet for American distributors that genuinely have no clue how to reach their target audiences, it’s no wonder that the Pink Eiga crew face an uphill struggle in their quest for an audience.
Pink Eiga’s films are definitely not going to change any of that. They fit in perfectly with the “Asian Extreme” ghetto paradigm confirmed by the now defunct Tartan USA. Tartan’s slate was so bogged down with bad Asian horror and genre titles that gems like Shinya Tsukamoto’s Vital or Song Il-Gon’s Spider Forest disappeared from view no sooner than they materialized. To wit, focusing on one kind of genre seems like the next logical step, similar to what the Weinstein brothers have done with their action-exclusive Dragon Dynasty line-up.
To get to its audience, Pink Eiga has to heedlessly push forward with their labor of love without concern for the harsh climate they’re working in. Though nobody in today’s marketplace is likely to (seriously, no pun intended) snatch up a series of films directed at adult audiences with a taste for the cuckoo stuff, they are something new and interesting, which is always what the marketplace needs. It may have all the prestige of a back-alley massage parlor but hey, those massage parlors do good-ish business, right?
The obvious counter-argument of course is that pink films aren’t high art or necessarily aiming at audience members that are looking for artistic satisfaction. S&M Hunter certainly isn’t shooting for the stars but it is certainly the kind of film that calls for the expansion of the burgeoning cinematic cult canon that so many have tried to justify the existence of.
S&M Hunter would just be a run-of-the-mill softcore porn featuring crazy bondage if it weren’t for its colorful and knowing humor. The titular anti-hero (Shir Shimomoto) is in league with a mysterious blind Crypt-keeper type figure that introduces the film by comically enacting the various kinds of deviant services he offers in his “Pleasure Dungeon.” From sadism to scat jobs, there’s something for everybody and while the same may not be true about the film, there is plenty to keep it entertaining throughout its skint 60 minute runtime, which is about average for a pink film.
The problem with recommending S&M Hunter is that its sex scenes are only mildly attractive. They’re fine for what they are but it’s a little too easy to get bored watching women wiggle around in ropes and nets while vibrators whir and restraints creakily tighten around nubile and almost always naked flesh. The attraction of BDSM is obviously lost on me but the film does its best to compensate with strange stunts—the most famous one involving a crane—and a dated and exploitation-tastic soundtrack, mostly if not entirely comprised of a bouncy disco theme.
After watching New Tokyo Decadence—The Slave (2007), another BDSM-themed pink film Pink Eiga is releasing, I’m honesty not sure how well these DVDs will sell. The Slave, a semi-autobiographical story about star Rinako Hirasawa’s sexual proclivities (think Scarlet Diva but shorter and competently directed), is a little too straightforward and humorless to reach anyone but hardcore pink fans. Pink Eiga is probably going to do gangbusters on campy titles like Sexy Battle Girls and Sexy S.W.A.T. Team 2: Silence of the Sushi Rolls but that’s because they are what the target audience more than likely wants—weird stuff as only those crazy Japs can think of it.
