The Final Rapeman

THE REIPUMAN 7 (RAPEMAN 7) was the last contemporary entry, and certainly the most emotionally powerful of all the Rapeman films from series director Takao Nagaishi, and writer of five films Jun Kojo. From a production standpoint, it is equally the slickest alongside the sixth entry.  Sadly, the brand ended its contemporary storylines after this entry, and switched to two mostly forgettable spin-offs.

The series, a clever satire, has never been fairly evaluated, and is often dismissed due to its premise. If you can cast your hysteria aside, it is a humble but very fine series filled with everything you want from pulp: political intrigue; a heart-warming relationship between the Clark Kent-like anti-hero Keisuke/Rapeman and his uncle; darkly modest action scenes; and inventive rape sequences that are never terribly brutal and certainly not explicit. Unlike the original manga, this live action Rapeman is a softer touch, surprisingly well written and plotted, but is bizarre enough still for fans of wild and wooly cinema, and never overreaches in terms of its scale. A spare, infectious electronic theme always compliments proceedings.

It took four or five films for the series to find solid footing, so by this seventh entry, the delicate balance of satire, thrills and honest emotion was achieved –– and that's what makes it all the more frustrating that there was no eighth film set in present day Tokyo. I don't know why production company Pink Pineapple decided to set its final two entries in historic Edo, but, for me, they did the series no favors as an historic Rapeman just feels silly and tonally odd, and the heavy-handed slapstick is a real turn-off. On top of that, Rapeman wears a cape and resembles a future version of Batman.

The seventh film involves Keisuke's relationship with a childhood friend whose concern about his girlfriend opens up a hornet's nest of plot twists. Keisuke's "Rapeman Services", which he runs with his lovable uncle, takes on the task of getting to the bottom of his friend's problem, and Keisuke dons his mask once again to "Right Wrongs Through Penetration" (the series motto).

In our ultra-PC age where nothing is considered ironic anymore, Rapeman (all 9 films) walks an even harder road to understanding or acceptance now than it did when released on video in Japan between '93 and '96.  The original manga series debuted in '85 and ran 'til '92 with 13 issues in hand. A fictitious 14th issue appeared as a plot device in an episode about rape in the deadly serious, humorless, moralizing Law and Order: SVU. 

Unfortunately, Rapeman star Hiroyuki Okita, who was a leading teen idol in his earlier years, committed suicide in '99, three years after the series ended, and production company Pink Pineapple re-dedicated itself to sexual-themed anime.

In the film's final minutes, director Nagaishi stages a scene in which Keisuke's friend, the film's true "hero", returns home and finds his girlfriend gone. In her place is a giant Betty Blue poster and an empty chair with a letter on it. The image really resonates as the plot in this episode parallels the mental illness theme of the famous French movie. The follow-up scene in which the friend searches for his girlfriend on the waterfront and finds her is beautifully staged and acted. If you're not a rotten cynic, it will move you as much as it moved me.

Despite the hysteria surrounding this series, which has never been released legitimately outside Japan, a viewing of all seven contemporary entries leaves one with the impression of a unique piece of V-cinema that is, at heart, sweet, heartfelt, and unexpectedly humanist.

That it has never been distributed in a boxed collection outside Japan is most unfortunate.

***I owe my first exposure to the Rapeman series (in '97) to my dear Japanese friend and fellow filmmaker/otaku Tomoaki Hosoyama, the director of Weatherwoman***

Pond Scum (The New Trailer)

POND SCUM (pre-release trailer) from CineNature on Vimeo.


POND SCUM is approaching the finish line.

A dedicated cast and crew (Renae Boult, Ward Boult, Dawna Lee Heising, Vida Gaffari, Paul Fanning, Marc Edward Heuck, Jacqui Fanning)  have made this bastard of a project possible.

I appreciate the unreasonable level of commitment from all.

POND SCUM is what I'd loosely call ero-horror, its emphasis being on sociopaths and the consequences of their pursuits. Some of those pursuits are darkly erotic, others are completely insane ventures into places no man or woman should go -- not if they expect to return unscathed.

The film is dedicated to my dear Japanese friend and fellow filmmaker Tomoaki Hosoyama, whose influence and friendship have been priceless and unique.

POND SCUM Trailer (HD)

Indie filmmaking is about persistence. 

A large dose of psychotic optimism doesn't hurt, either. 

I'm grateful for the stellar human beings who are taking this tough journey with me. You all know who you are.

Despite the fact that Pulp IS a way of life, I'd be careful who I recommend it to.

Trailer for My New Feature 'FERTISLE'

Blog posts have been spotty this year due to the fact that I've been working on two features and an epic documentary.

All three are finally taking shape as tangible entities and here is the trailer for the first one, Fertisle.

A man at war with himself, washed up on a strange South Pacific island, becomes its unwanted guest, and the target of a native woman who wants nothing but to be left alone.

The film is the first feature of US-, Japan-, and Australia-based production company, Cinenature, an outfit specializing in strong genre material for the international market.

My cinematic obsessions -- male/female relationships, dolls, islands, the ocean, the grotesque, and the beautiful -- are given full voice here.

 

Hosoyama's Amazing Sinema of Serious Nonsense

This is Tomoaki Hosoyama, the Japanese film director who whipped up a perfect storm with his cult hit, Weatherwoman, an adaptation of the popular manga Otenki Onasan.

Somehow, Mr. Hosoyama performed the impossible. This is what he did:

After making a movie destined for Japan's lucrative direct-to-video market for the princely sum of $500K, it was decided that the film would should play at several international film festivals while simultaneously arriving in Nippon video stores. The film socked it to the competition at the Arctic Light Film Festival in Sweden, the Oslo International Film Festival in Norway, Film Fest Hamburg, Gijon International Film Festival in Spain, and the Satire and Humor Film Festival in Italy.

So positive was the international response to Tomoaki's one-of-a-kind cinematic confection -- dubbed "The Wildest of Wild Cards" by Variety, and "a truly bizarre film that suggests a marriage between Russ Meyer and John Waters", by Rotten Tomatoes -- that the Japanese distributor decided to book it into Japanese theaters, despite the fact that it had already been released on video.

Guess what happened then?

It became one of Japan's top grossing films in 1996.

Keiko (Kei Mizutani), a tall, attractive woman with a libertine bent, joins a TV network whose ratings are in the doldrums. In an effort to lift them, Keiko decides to sign off on each evening's weather forecast by lifting her skirt and showing viewers her white, cotton panties.

Ratings go through the roof.

Although there are the expected protests by some of the network staff, the big boss gives Keiko the green light to carry on with her erotic weather report.

Unfortunately, the network boss's jealous daughter sets her sights on Keiko's destruction, and challenges her to a bizarre, meteorological duel, in which both women hurl bolts of lightning at one another in a contest to become the supreme network forecaster.

A subplot involving a devoted fan of Keiko is weaved into the proceedings, as are several detours into Keiko's healthy obsession with masturbation and penchant for light bondage.

As surreal as it all sounds, the film works beautifully thanks to Hosoyama's control of and affection for the material. The film is never sleazy or mean-spirited; it is, like a Russ Meyer movie, a celebration of sexuality and female power. It is also a tongue-in-cheek poem to the concept of "nonsense"

A direct-to-video sequel, Weatherwoman Returns, followed a year later.

Hosoyama defines his approach to both films thus:

"In Weatherwoman, the focus was on visual silliness, using people's realistic mentality as flavoring. The main theme running through both Weatherwoman films also happens to be my outlook on life. In nonsense, one finds sense."

Although Weatherwoman marked Mr. Hosoyama's theatrical debut, his bona fides as a filmmaker were already well established with a large body of fascinating work in Japan's pink film trenches.

His pink film baptism by fire was the '84 Family Hooker, a satirical look at a multi-generational family business. The film attracted wanted and unwanted attention because Hosoyama turned it into his graduating thesis for the University of Nippon.







Shot on 35mm, like all his pink films, it is a potent blend of social commentary and dark comedy.

Tomoaki Hosoyama directing Family Hooker

Next up for the director was the '86 Chaotic Love, a grim, mostly autobiographical tome about a man's fruitless search for love and companionship.

It has many surreal touches and manages to convey the desperation inherent in loneliness.




Certainly it is the most nihilistic of Hosoyama's movies.

1987's Big Milk Secreting won the director his first Pink Film Award -- Best New Director.

Starring Eri Kikuchi, who was a big porn star at the time, the film is based on Hosoyama's own personal experiences in the Japanese porn film business.

The theme, however, is not pornography, it is "platonic love", and it focuses on the relationship between a porn star and her agent, and questions whether platonic love is possible in such a strange business.

Yutaka Ikejima (Blind Love, 2005; Subway Serial Rape 4, '88; Lolita Vibrator Torture, '87) who played the agent, received much praise for his engaging, powerful performance.

Again, the film is filled with sadness and pain.





1986's gritty Sumo-Wrestling Girls was directly inspired by Robert Aldrich's equally gritty and highly underrated All The Marbles (aka The California Dolls, '81)

Obviously, Hosoyama swapped the pro-wrestling of Aldrich's action-drama for sumo wrestling.

The film is a good example of how pink film makers subverted genre expectations while still giving the distributor its pound of cinematic flesh.




What Hosoyama achieved with a tiny budget on a week long shoot is remarkable.



The '86 Big Milk Secreting 2 (below) only had its title in common with the first film.

A very different piece in every way, it focuses on the lives of three prostitutes...

...and the difficulties they encounter on a daily basis.

It blends social commentary into a loose, softcore scenario.



Lesbian Colony ('87) is Mr. Hosoyama's love letter to John Waters' Desperate Living ('77), a film that was a strong influence on his early filmmaking, and my early filmmaking, too.

The film differs slightly in its set-up. Instead of being about two female lawbreakers (skinny Mink Stole and mammoth Jean Hill) on the lam who discover Mortville, the town where criminals can live "scot free", Hosoyama's version zeroes in on two ostracized lesbians (social criminals?) who leave Tokyo in search for a world where their kind can live "scot free".

They find a town ruled by an androgynous despot who gives Edith Massey's Queen Carlotta a definite run for her money.

The scene in which a penis sprays fireworks has to be seen to be believed...

... as do several outrageous and audacious scenes of humiliation.

The film is a cavalcade of gleeful perversion...

...with the villain getting her just desserts.

The film's low rent but highly creative art direction would would have pleased John Waters and his ace art director Vincent Peranio



The '88 Love Affairs (above) asks: Why is love so complicated?

It doesn't provide a definitive answer, but it certainly explores why so many distractions ...

... are often mistaken for love.

The film is well shot and lit, and is one of Hosoyama's most tepid genre entries.






Dirty Girl ('89), starring Toyumaru, a Japanese porn star notorious for her "lewd" performances, marked the conclusion of Tomoaki Hosoyama's pink film career.




The actress played herself in the film, and the story drew from her celebrity and infamy.


By this time, Hosoyama had become frustrated by the limitations of the medium, and lack of resources.



The director is currently developing a number of projects including Kieba, a fascinating love story set in the world of horse racing.

One of Japan's unsung heroes of independent cinema, I met Tomoaki more than a decade ago when I was in production on The Masturbating Gunman (aka Masked Avenger...).

In addition to having shared the same amount of earth years, our tastes were virtually identical.

We became and have remained fast friends by mail, telephone, and in person, and are working on a number of co-ventures which we hope to unveil soon.

A compilation of Mr. Hosoyama's pink films is in the works