S&M Hunter

Tonight I finally saw Shûji Kataoka's Bondage SM: 18 Years Old (緊縛・ＳＭ・１８才 - Kinbaku · SM · 18-sai), released on DVD by Pink Eiga to American audiences-- twice (first edition at left, second edition below, right)-- as S&M Hunter. We all owe this fine company-- and others, like Synapse, the late, great Pinky Violence, Panik House, ArtsMagic, etc.-- a world of thanks for, finally, making this fascinating area of Japanese cinema available for those of us with more adventurous tastes. I've had my nose pressed against the window of Japanese erotic cinema for decades, just reading all about it that I could, but my actually viewing of them was all too rare. I did have the good fortune to see a few Nikkatsu Roman Pornos and the like during their first run, but thanks to DVD releases, the last few years have given me the chance to see dozens of films I'd previously only known from still photographs and literature.Still, though I've had this DVD for a while, I put off watching it because of my general dislike of S&M films. Oh, I can tolerate an exceptionally well-made one, with a really gorgeous actress, like Naomi Tani in Wife to Be Sacrificed (1974), or Naomi Tani in... just about anything else. But usually I find tying, whipping, pissing in buckets, etc. to be just inane, and not even remotely erotic... So my prejudice postponed my viewing this really funny satire of the genre, and a really good low-budget movie to boot.

This film was first released theatrically in February 1986 as a sequel to Hanging Upside-Down Bondage (逆さ吊し縛り縄 - Sakasa tsurushi shibari-nawa) which was released in September 1985. Pink Eiga plans to release this earlier film on DVD to the Anglo audience as S&M Hunter Begins. Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films (1998) call these two films the "Roper from Hell" series. According to them, there was a third installment planned, but never produced. Pink Eiga is giving some future releases titles which imply they tie into the "Roper from Hell" series (such as S&M Hunter Chronicle: The Legend of Yakuza and S&M Hunter: Wife to Be Molested-- note the Tani reference), but they actually have no relationship to the "Roper from Hell" films.
S&M Hunter was released to home video in Japan in the VHS edition above......and re-released theatrically on November 27, 2007 under the ending-spoiler title S&M Crane Suspension (ＳＭクレーン宙吊り - SM crane chûzuri). The poster to that re-release is above.

The film has a strong, veteran Pink film cast. Mr. Pink himself, Yutaka Ikejima, introduces the film in the role of the master of an S&M club, and Pink film stalwart Shirô Shimomoto (right) is in his element in the titular role, a one-eyed vigilante rope master who uses his skills to punish offending females. The female cast is led by eager and pretty, but skinny, S&M enthusiast Hiromi Saotome as Meg, S&M Hunter's nemesis and leader of the girl-gang The Bombers. These bad girls go around capturing, tying up, and abusing men.

One actress in the film deserves special attention from this blog. With my taste in big, bouncy gals, and the Pink film genre's preference for skinny girls, I usually view these movies simply as movies, not expecting there to be much to stimulate my own specialized tastes. However upon the unveiling of the estimable bosom of Mie Mogami (above, sometimes transliterated as Yoshie Mogami), who plays a member of The Bombers, I snapped to attention. The film subsequently gave me a few moments to stop, rewind, pause, and reflect, admiring the view in loving slo-mo. Another reviewer says the film takes a brief turn into Russ Meyer territory here. Well, not quite, perhaps, but Ms. Mogami did inspire me to do some research. I find that, under the name Mie Saijô, she was an early buxom AV star, before Kimiko Matsuzaka, and maybe even Eri Kikuchi. How I missed her in the mid-1980s, I'll never know. Tomorrow I'll post what I little found on her.
Above, naughty Mogami torments a gay captive with her body......and the S&M Hunter takes vengeance on her with his notorious spider-web trick, twanging the ropes expertly to produce some titillating jiggles.

Where were we? Oh right, the movie. Yes, it's a comedy. A very funny one. And, while parodying S&M films, it manages to take satirical swipes at many other genres and subjects. There's something to offend everyone, as they say. Among the targets for its gleefully un-PC humor are: Christianity, Nazism, S&M (of course), scatology, homosexuality, etc., etc., etc. Kataoka's direction is very movie-savvy, and targets of parody include Western films in general, Sergio Leone in particular, along with the music of Ennio Morricone, and at least one wink at John Ford... Kataoka not only ribs the western directors, he makes damned good camera set-ups and creates some very impressive visual imagery while doing so.

Speaking of memorable imagery, as alluded to in the VHS and re-release titles, the film ends with an amazing set-piece: Hiromi Saotome tied-up and suspended by crane, nude, high above Tokyo. It is surely one of the most awe-inspiring moments in Pink film history. This scene deserves to be as iconic to world erotic cinema as Harold Lloyd hanging off the clock in Safety Last (1923) is to silent film.

Surprisingly, reviewing it in 1998 under the original title Bondage SM: 18 Years Old, Thomas and Mrs. Weisser treat this as a run-of-the-mill Pink film and only give it two-and-a-half stars out of four. (More and more I suspect the Weissers actually saw precious few of the films they review. Though their basic data usually turns out to be accurate, I've stopped paraphrasing their plot descriptions at movie sites due to blatant errors I've found in them.) I found this film to be an outstanding example of Pink cinema, and one of the best releases so far from Pink Eiga. This is one I will look forward to watching again. On my Pink film scale I give it an enthusiastic nine stars out of ten.