Pink Eiga Films has done it again, putting me in an awkward position because they make me want to say—despite all my hesitations—that their weird line-up of softcore Japanese erotica is probably the most intriguing cult finds of the year. With their latest double-header—A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn (2003) and Sexy Battle Girls (1986)—they show why these 60-minute skin flicks have developed a cult that can and will defend them as serious artsploitation. The simultaneous release of A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn and Sexy Battle Girls creates an unlikely collision of tastes and sentiments, especially considering that the only thing they have in common—a bunch of sex scenes involving yelping women and weird fetishes—is the least interesting part of either film. On the one hand, we have a semi-serious drama about an old farmer that confuses his daughter-in-law for his cow Bessie and on the other, an action-comedy about a schoolgirl that has trained her vag’ to be a deadly weapon for the sake of avenging her father.
When thinking about what a typical “pink” film might be, Sexy Battle Girls is undoubtedly the first thing to come to mind. Filled with bizarre, kinky humor—prime examples include a dildo yo-yo and ink pens that are wielded like throwing stars—Sexy Battle Girls is a campfest filled with dated music, cheesy hairdos and lots of misappropriated grrl power. The sex scenes are dull and repetitive for the most part, save for the scene where the lesbian nerd gets friendly with her nemesis’ dildo yo-yo. Then again, anyone expecting to seriously get off by watching a film called Sexy Battle Girls is neck-deep in a certain Egyptian river.
Sexy Battle Girls’ campy humor is problematically quarantined from its sex scenes for the most part, making the aforementioned yoyo encounter the exception that proves the rule. As far as onscreen coitus goes, they’re fairly vanilla and take up a big chunk of the film’s blissfully brief runtime, making it likely that anyone looking for hyper-pop thrills will end up stabbing their fast-forward button repeatedly. Sexy Battle Girls isn’t nearly as out-there as S&M Hunter (1986), a recent Pink Eiga release that successfully merges its humor and sexuality, making it shark bait for the youtube set.
The truly adventurous cult filmgoer will find heaven in A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn. As a sentimental melodrama about a senile farmer that refuses to sell his farm for fear of becoming useless, it dishes out all the quirk of S&M Hunter with a dollop of sentimentality to boot. As a softcore weepy where an old man fucks his daughter-in-law to get over his pain and free her from her obligation to him, it hits home in unexpected ways (ie: by film’s end, you will believe a man can milk his daughter-in-law).
Writer/director Daisuke Goto’s script is mostly sober but is smart enough to create its own kind of humor—did we just see that cow keel over from its POV? Compared to Sexy Battle Girls, its like what Aki Kaurismaki is to the Farrelly brothers. Being both sad and silly, however, is what makes it the strongest film Pink Eiga has released thus far and a shoe-in for one of the more perplexingly enjoyable one’s I’ll see this year.
