Vintage poster for Jitsuroku onna kanbetsusho: sei-jigoku, aka True Story of a Woman Condemned: Sex Hell, directed by Koyu Ohara and starring Hitomi Kozue. It premiered in Japan today in 1975. 

Maybe the English word “sex” is to the Japanese what the French word “soirée” is to English speakers—i.e., a foreign word that carries more meaning than its indigenous equivalent. Maybe “sex” sounds really dirty to Japanese ears. Maybe it’s just conveniently short. We don’t know the answer, but below are six one-sheets using that magical English syllable. However you say it, just do it. 

Are you getting a sense of déjà vu? Well, you’re not crazy. This does have an identical bondage theme and color palette as a poster we shared last week. The main difference is that this victim has shaved her armpits, which is good, because you always want to look your best for a torturing. The film here is Kifujin shibari tsubo, aka Noble Lady Bound Vase, and it stars Naomi Tani, who we’re going to get know real well on this site. She was Japan’s queen of bondage cinema, garnering notoriety for her roles in flicks like Wife To Be Sacrificed and Colorful Bed of Violent Desire, before retiring to become a restaurant owner. As we mentioned before, though we like pinku films, harder ones are not exactly our cup of T&A. We do realize that rope bondage is considered fine art in Japan, but as Americans—even ones who have spent years abroad—we can’t completely shake a lifetime of conditioning that makes us see something weird here. But on the other hand, we seriously doubt the Japanese can understand why we glorify violence to such an extent in American cinema. So we won’t judge them if they don’t judge us. One of the reasons we started this site was to explore how art varies from culture to culture, and so of course we’ll keep discussing these films, but we’ll also be looking seriously into the Japanese bondage arts kinbaku-bi and shibari. Hope you’re looking forward to that. Now we have to go shoot some people. Kifujin shibari tsubo opened in Japan today in 1977.

Hana to hebi: kyûkyoku nawa chôkyô was released with the English title Flower and Snake 4: Rope Magic, which is a very pretty collection of nouns for an exercise in torture porn. Fairly hard torture porn, too, probably because by the time this was made by Nikkatsu Studios, adult video was taking a major bite out of Japan’s pinku market. The plot here is simple: a gambler with debts loses his wife and daughter to the Yakuza, who proceed to humiliate the women in various fiendish ways. There’s an escape attempt that goes awry, but basically the story is just a framework for increasingly devilish forms of sexual degradation. You got your dildos. You got your hot wax. You got your urine. This is soooo not our thing. But what is our thing is the promo art, which is just lovely, even while evincing the film’s highly dubious nature. Experienced pinku fans, or those into the Japanese art of Kinbaku-bi (beautiful bondage) may dig this movie. All others proceed with caution. Hana to hebi: kyûkyoku nawa chôkyô, premiered in Japan today in 1987.     

Assorted Italian and Spanish covers of Nicola del Principe’s Sukia,1977 to 1986, borrowed from sources too numerous to name. Credit to all. Also, perhaps you noticed that the cover star looks like Italian actress Ornella Muti? Well, she is Ornella Muti. At least, the main character Sukia Dragomic is modeled after her. We’ll have the full story on Sukia later, along with more covers.     

Update: Okay apparently nobody got our headline and subhead, but that's because they didn't look at the first cover. Notice the snowman has a giant schlong, indicated by the shadow? So Season's Greetings is like a penile salute. And Ding Dong Merrily on High is a (not so) famous Christmas Carol. Not funny? Sigh. All we want for Christmas is more wit.

Last December we posted a rare and beautiful German one-sheet for the sexploitation classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Today we have the not-quite-as-rare but equally cool Japanese promo art. Check out our original entry on this film. It premiered today in Tokyo in 1970.    

El diablo que vinó de Akasawa, for which you see the great poster above, is a Jesus Franco flick, so you know to expect sex, action, and dubious technical values. The film is about a detective investigating the disappearance of a professor in the fictive African land of Akasava. The sleuth discovers that the mystery revolves around a mineral that can turn metal into gold and men into zombies. Of course, everyone wants control of the substance and pretty soon spies are crawling out of the woodwork and wah-wah guitar is swelling on the soundtrack. All very fun. We're also appreciative of the art, which is based on a promo shot of star Soledad Miranda, aka Susann Korda. The progression from photo to photo-illustration to painting is similar to the one we showed you for Death Is a Woman, but with more skin. And uh, more muff. Hope we brightened your day. Now for the not-so-wonderful part—Soledad Miranda died in a car crash in Portugal in 1970, aged 27. Her fame was achieved mainly after her death, as B-movie fans rediscovered her extensive shlock catalog thanks to VHS. You can get a full idea what sort of cheesefest El diablo que vinó de Akasawa is by viewing an original trailer here. It opened in Spain today, after she was gone, in 1971.     

German-Czech actress Barbara Bouchet as Kitty Wildenbrück in the Italian giallo classic, La dama rossa uccide sette volte, aka The Red Queen Kills 7 Times, aka Blood Feast, aka several other titles,1972.     

Above are two rare Japanese posters for the 1977 Italian sexploitation thriller Autostop rosso sangue, aka Hitch-Hike. The woman with the rifle is Corinne Clery, who made her name starring in the softcore classic Histoire d’O, but is perhaps better known to American audiences for playing Corinne Dufour in the Bond film Moonraker. Basically, Autostop is the story of two embittered spouses who make the mistake of picking up a hitchhiker who happens to be a vicious bank robber. Vicious criminals always take a shine to unhappy wives, and so we know where this one is headed, but there’s oh so much more to the plot. Violent, gripping, and thoroughly sexual, we recommend this one for genre fans only. All others, maybe give it a pass the same way Clery and her husband should have passed by the hitchhiker.     

This one-sheet for Zenka onna: koroshi-bushi, aka Criminal Woman: Killing Melody is one of the more common pinku images on the internet and, for that reason, we weren’t going to post it. But then we decided to do it anyway because, with only one exception, every site we saw had this piece reversed. Yeah, we know—those Japanese characters look the same backward and forward. Unless of course you happen to read Japanese. So for the record, the poster is correctly oriented the way we have it above. As for the movie, well you’ve got Reiko Ike, action, gore, sexploitation, prison, and co-star Miki Sugimoto, all in a fast-paced, straightforward revenge flick. It isn’t quite tops, but even mediocre pinku is good pinku in our book. Zenka onna: koroshi-bushi opened in Japan today in 1973.