 Yurika! She has it. 
This pretty poster was made to promote the film Himegoto, known in English as Secret Affair, which was directed by Takeo Takagi and stars Mika Yuki in the role of a geisha named Yurika who decides to make extra money by selling scandalous details of prominent people's private lives to a tabloid. It had us at geisha. This turned out to be far more obscure than we guessed considering the poster pops up often around the web. Not only didn't we find it, but we found no reviews of it anywhere. However, we wanted to share the promo art because the film opened in Japan today in 1967. We'll keep looking for a copy.
 If it's there you can bet we'll find it. 
Above you see a poster for Aizome Kyôko: G no kaikan, aka Kyôko Aizome's G-spot Pleasure, with Kyôko Aizome (not to be confused with Kyoko Izumi) fronting the art. Aizome goes way back. She appeared in her first film in 1975, but this particular effort premiered in Japan today in 2000, when she was forty-two. Though it's a comparatively recent production we were not able to track down a copy, which when you think about it is apropos, considering science says g-spots don't really exist. We're pro-science guys, but a lot of women say there's a real piece of anatomy in there, and a dedicated search often turns something up—if only the woman's heart rate. Aizome, below, suggests you give it a try. 
 Currents and caves are bad enough, but lies can drag you into really dangerous waters.  
Last week we talked about the 1959 drama Zoku-zoku-Kindan no suna: Akai pantsu, third film in the Shochiku Co. franchise sometimes referred to as the Underwater Series. You know we're sticklers for talking about movies on their premiere dates, which is why today we're looking at Zoku kindan no suna, which opened in Japan today in 1958. In the west the movie was known as Forbidden Sands or The Prohibited Man's Sand, and like the others in the series deals with the loves and troubles of an ama—a female skin diver. Two bank robbers steal seven million yen, which we think is like forty or fifty bucks, and hide out on an island peopled by amas and their families. The crooks pretend to be a marine biology professor and his assistant, and they don scuba gear and hide the cash in some underwater caves known as the Dragon's Caves—a name which just screams trouble. They're convinced the treasure is inaccessible, but these amas are really good, and one in particular has no trouble at all making especially long dives. One of the crooks takes a shine to her, and warns her to stay out of the caves because they're dangerous, but the shine is mutual, so surprise surprise, as a gift she decides to swim down there to find rare specimens for his phony marine research. Yes, theft is one thing, but lies are a whole other bucket of starfish. Zoku kindan no suna is a recommendable flick, but be forewarned that if you're in the States it might be even harder to find than that loot in the Dragon's Caves. But at least you can enjoy the posters. We aren't done with this series, so keep an eye out for another installment in a bit.     
 Likes include fine saki, sunset walks, and light humiliation.     
Above, five promo posters featuring Naomi Oka, who appeared in dozens of pinku and roman porno films between 1972 and 1987, with 1979 being her banner year as twelve films hit Japanese screens. As you might imagine based on the above evidence, she was one of the queens of bondage. The posters above are for, top to bottom, Onna keimusho shikei, aka Women's Prison: The Lynching, Hentai shikijô nawa fujin, aka Abnormal Rope Wife, Hitozuma hentai, aka Abnormal Bride, Nihon no rinchi, aka Japanese Lynching, and Kinbalu ijo-ma, aka Distributing agency: Shin-Toho, also sometimes referred to as Disturbing: Rope Master. It's always important to note that restraint and bondage have a special place in Japanese culture, where it's considered—if not quite normal—not outstandingly weird either. Below you see Oka mercifully freed from bondage.
 The situation is becoming Seri-ous. 
Continuing with our recent theme, we've done a deep search on our site and found every instance where we said we'd get back to a subject later. We can't fulfill all those promises, but we're shortening the list again today. After sharing a couple of promos of an underwear clad Meika Seri from a 1974 photo session, we said we'd reveal whether the Secret Chronicle actress shed any more clothing. Above is your answer. She shed all her clothing.
 Mari Atsumi shows her stripes. 
We've already shared two posters for the 1970 pinku flick Denki kurage: kawaii akuma, aka Play It Cool, aka Electric Medusa: Lovely Wicked Woman. Today we have yet another promo for the film, with Mari Atsumi looking cool, lovely, wicked, and a few other things, all of them good. In the film she plays a model who loses her job after she refuses to “entertain” a department store owner, and later finds herself hassled by a villainous Yakuza who wants to turn her into a call girl. If you've seen any pinku films at all, you know how this goes—humiliation, tables turned, revenge. Atsumi was a big star in her day. She appeared in twenty-eight films, guested on a number of television shows, and released a couple of popular albums. Like many pinku actresses, though, her current whereabouts are basically a mystery. One Japanese webpage literally says nobody knows where she is. But that's okay—she gave us plenty to remember her by. You can see the other Denki kurage posters we've shared here and here, and there's even another promo for the film you can see over at the website Bulles de Japon at this link. And below we have more bonus material—some promo photos from the film.       
 She may get pushed around but eventually she always pushes back. 
Rashamen Oman: higanbana wa chitta, for which you see he promo here, is known in English as Foreigner’s Mistress Oman: Falling Autumn Flower. The movie starred Sally Mei, aka Sally May, an enigmatic half Anglo half Japanese actress who appeared in a handful of movies and had a short singing career, here playing the character Oman in a sequel to Rashamen Oman: ame no Oranda-zaka (poster here). She'd do one more film in this series called Enzetsu jokyo-den: Oman midarehada, and all of them premiered between March and August of the same year, which shows you how fast Nikkatsu churned these Krispy Kremes out. The plot of the first movie saw Mei travel from Shanghai to Japan in search of her mother, only to be betrayed by her companion and sold to a brothel, where she becomes a geisha and gambler. Luckily, Mei had picked up some sword skills along the way and put those to good use julienning her captors. The sequel, then, picks up after she's served a prison sentence only to find that her sister is in the clutches of a group of yakuza lowlifes. Mei is up the challenge once again. Starring as her sister, by the way, is Yuri Yamashina, who we've looked at before. Rashamen Oman: higanbana wa chitta premiered in Japan today in 1972. 
 Without tender loving care it dries up and wilts. 
This fantastic poster was made to promote the film Akai kaben ga nureru, which in English would have a title like Red Petals Get Wet or possibly Red Wet Petals. Yeah. Japanese filmmakers and their vagina metaphors, right? There are so many of these wet petal, dewy pistil movies you could make a bouquet. A very moist one. The film stars Teruo Matsunaga, who we last saw in Tokyo Chatterly fujin, and here she plays a stripper who gets involved in illicit upper crust orgies and even more illicit smut films. Co-starring is the incomparable Hitomi Kozue. We can't tell you much more about the film because we haven't seen it, but hopefully we'll be able to track it down later and give it a look.
 Operating at a whole new delinquency.  
Above are two posters for Zubeko banchô: hamagure kazoe uta, aka Delinquent Girl Boss: Ballad of Yokohama Hoods, third in the Delinquent Girl Boss series, with Reiko Oshida reprising her role as the ass kicking Rika Kageyama. We managed to track down a copy of this and took a gander. It's similar to other entries, with Oshida going from the frying pan to the fire—or more literally, from reform school to the mean streets, as shortly after arriving in Yokohama she gets tangled up in girl biker and organized crime weirdness. She proves her mettle to the girls, then sets about causing trouble for the boys. All this is wrapped around a subplot involving a deserter from the U.S. army.  One distinguishing aspect of Yokohama Hoods is that sex and nudity are de-emphasized throughout the proceedings, and we think this actually helps the movie. We're still grappling with the often challenging role of sexual violence in pinku films, trying but not always managing to understand it in its cultural context, so Yokohama Hoods was refreshing for its lack. Other aspects are exactly as you'd anticipate—i.e. a climactic confrontation between the tough good girls and the superbad boys. Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi goes all out, staging a waterfront fracas featuring speeding motorcycles, blazing machine guns, flashing swords, and more. If everyone actually aimed their guns rather than thrusting them wildly at their targets the fight might have ended sooner, but in any case Yokohama will never be the same. Zubeko banchô: hamagure kazoe uta premiered in Japan today in 1971. 
|
 |
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1958—Workers Assemble First Corvette
Workers at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan, assemble the first Corvette, a two-seater sports car that would become an American icon. The first completed production car rolls off the assembly line two days later, one of just 300 Corvettes made that year. 1950—U.S. Decides To Fight in Korea
After years of border tensions on the partitioned Korean peninsula, U.S. President Harry Truman orders U.S. air and sea forces to help the South Korean regime repel an invasion by the North. Soon the U.S. is embroiled in a war that lasts until 1953 and results in a million combat dead and at least two million civilian deaths, with no measurable gains for either side. 1936—First Helicopter Flight
In Berlin, Germany, in a sports stadium, Ewald Rohlfs takes the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 on its first flight. It is the first fully-controllable helicopter, featuring two counter rotating rotors mounted on the chassis of a training aircraft. Only two are ever produced, and neither survive today. 1963—John F. Kennedy Visits Berlin
22 months after East Germany erects the Berlin Wall as a barrier to prevent movement between East and West Berlin, John F. Kennedy visits West Berlin and speaks the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner." Suggestions that Kennedy misspoke and in reality called himself a jelly donut are untrue.
|
 |
|
It's easy. We have an uploader that makes it a snap. Use it to submit your art, text, header, and subhead. Your post can be funny, serious, or anything in between, as long as it's vintage pulp. You'll get a byline and experience the fleeting pride of free authorship. We'll edit your post for typos, but the rest is up to you. Click here to give us your best shot.
|
|
