| Vintage Pulp | Mar 16 2020 |
It's a movie with the power to make a blind man see.
We may never run out of beautiful Japanese posters. Today we have one for the goofball spy thriller Hyappatsu hyakuchu: Ogon on me. The title on this one gets complicated. It was retitled in English Booted Babe, Busted Boss, and mostly referred to as such. Yeah, pretty bad title. In Japanese it was known as 100発100中 黄金の眼, which means “golden eyes 100 shots out of 100.” That title was shortened in English to just Golden Eyes. We like that better than Booted whatever.
The film was a sequel to Hyappatsu hyakuchu, known in English as Ironfinger. We had somewhat high expectations for this, considering Ironfinger was pretty entertaining in that stupidly funny sort of way. Akira Takarada stars again as Andy Hoshino. He goes to Beirut, is asked by a little girl to kill her father's killer, and is paid for his services with the only currency the girl has—a silver dollar. Neither of them knows that this coin is in reality a priceless Spanish gold medallion covered in silver.
Soon numerous parties are chasing Andy around Beirut, and later Tokyo, trying to retrieve this priceless artifact. The main pursuer is the arch-villain Mr. Stonefeller, a blind Emilio Largo clone (think Thunderball) whose hearing is so precise he can pick foes off with a sniper rifle. So why isn't the movie called Golden Ears? Just doesn't have that snap to it, does it? We guess Toho Company called it Golden Eyes because the villain wants the gold so badly, therefore he has eyes for it, so to speak. Best guess.
The plot is less important than the gags here, and there are a couple of good ones, particularly during a gunfight in which Andy kills several foes by throwing a machine gun at them, then shooting the trigger of the machine gun in mid-air, thereby causing it to fire, plowing the bad guys under like weeds. But still, the sophomore jinx is a real thing, and Golden Eyes has diminished sequel syndrome. It's watchable, though, if likely offensive to anyone of Lebanese descent. You'll see what we mean. It premiered in Japan today in 1968.
Must dodge hook.
Must dodge hook. Must dodge hook.
Really must dodge hook!
Must dodge hook! Must dodge hook!
Oww! Motherfuck me!
Anyone got more shoe polish? Lebanese Brown if you have it. I ran out before I finished my ears.
The irony is he told me he'd learned he was being racist and came up here to wash it off in the bath. Ten more minutes and there'd have been no justification for this.
I can hit anything with this pistol.
Including d-flat. Here, listen. Isn't that cool?
Wait until you hear Miss Tomoni sing, Mr. Stonefeller. This will blow your mind. She's considered the Bob Dylan of Tokyo because of her incisive and politically relevant lyrics.
You're right, she's amazing. And though I'm blind, and technically shouldn't be able to see her, I also find it incredible how she changes costumes multiple times mid-song like that.
Oh, that's nothing. The midnight show she goes full frontal. Maybe your off-and-on blindness will be on around then.
Room service, sir. You ordered two duck dinners?
Surprise! Duck à l'Agent Orange!
Gotta run! Hope you die! Go vegan! You can leave my tip on the nightstand!
Hi! Commercial Girl here. You haven't seen me for a while, right? Hate to interrupt, but I've been called by the Pulp Intl. girlfriends to put a stop to this endless post. The Pulp guys are on virus lockdown and it's making them a little loopy. But under threat of sexual boycott they're done for today. See you soon!JapanLebanonBeirutToho CompanyHyappatsu hyakuchu: Ogon on meGolden Eyes100発100中 黄金の眼Booted Babe Busted BossAkira TakaradaBeverly MaedaTomomi Sawaposter artcinemamovie review
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 13 2020 |
She surfed a wave that lasted four decades.
The wonderful surfing themed photo you see here shows Japanese actress, model, and singer Maria Anzai, who debuted in show business in 1973, and that year won the Japan Record Grand Prize Newcomer Award. As an actress she appeared in a handful of television shows and two movies, one of which was Rupan Sansei: Nenriki chin sakusen, which in English had the amazing title Lupin the Third: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy.
Obviously with such a slight filmography, the wave we suggest she caught isn't her film career. Nor are we referencing her music work, though she was quite popular for awhile. That leaves only her modeling. Anzai, like luminaries such as Rita Moreno and Helen Mirren, looked amazing until a very late age. The photo above appeared in 1975, when she was twenty-two, but below you see her aged fifty-plus, in two shots published in a photo book devoted entirely to her called Dear M.
The cover text says something like, “The legendary diva also had a legendary body.” We should say so. Even if you factor in a little photo retouching she looks great. She even outlasted Japan's 1970s-era censorship of pubic hair and was able to go full frontal in the new millennium. But where her beauty genes were excellent, other genes may not have been—she died only two years after Dear M. was released, victim of a heart attack. You can see another image of her next-to-last in this group of magazine covers we posted several years back.
JapanRupan Sansei: Nenriki chin sakusenLupin the Third: Strange Psychokinetic StrategyDear M.Maria Anzai安西マリアtelevisionnudity
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 3 2020 |
Uwasa matter with a little casual sex?
Redeeming ourselves from being unable to find the last two pinku films we shared posters for, today we have another promo—and we were able to see the film. This one is called Onna kyôshi: Yogoreta uwasa, aka Female Teacher 7: Dirty Rumor, and it's a roman porno starring Erina Miyai, one of the genre's most popular and prolific stars. In fact, she made twenty-seven films in 1977, ’78, and ’79, which is a pace that barely leaves enough time between projects for one's self-esteem to heal. In this one Miyai plays a classics teacher who was raised by a freaky aunt, and has inherited the same proclivities. She doesn't necessarily like being a nymphomaniac, but figures it's out of her hands, since slutty blood runs in her family. So she gets busy with all kinds of guys, in all kinds of places, in all kinds of ways, and rumors start to spread. The principal of her school mentions them. Later, tawdry tales reach one of Miyai's male acquaintances, and the perv attempts to buy her services for thirty-thousand yen. It's hard out there for a congenital nympho. But at the end comes a twist. We won't say what it is, except that we put a hint in our post title. Put on your thinking jimmy caps and it'll come to you. Onna kyôshi: Yogoreta uwasa premiered in Japan today in 1979.
I love you, driftwood. You're longer and harder than a man, and you don't pee on the toilet rim.
And I also love you, seaweed balls. You give more than any guy, and you never get tired.
That's right, I've been sleeping with driftwood and seaweed balls. You don't own me! Deal with it!
My life is ruined. What on Earth am I going to do?
I really dig you, erotic comic book. Let's not call it love. Why put a label on it at all?JapanOnna kyôshi: Yogoreta uwasaFemale Teacher 7: Dirty RumorNikkatsuErina Miyaiposter artcinemapinkumovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 1 2020 |
They're planning to make a sizable withdrawal.
Above is an alternate poster for the bank heist flick Suke Yakuza, aka Female Yakuza Convict, which premiered in Japan today in 1974 and starred Reiko Ike and Yoko Horikoshi. We still haven't tracked down the movie, and since we know of no other promos than the four—including this one—we've now shared, if we ever do find this we won't be able to write about it because we'll have no art to pair with a write-up. Unless, of course, there's yet a fifth poster out there. But we doubt it. So consider this rare horizontally oriented version the last you'll hear from us about this film.
JapanToei CompanySuke Yakuza女囚やくざFemale Yakuza ConvictReiko IkeYoko Horikoshiposter artcinemapinkupinky violence
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 1 2020 |
Mirror mirror in my hand, who's the raunchiest in the land?
And what the hell, let's double up on pinku films we can't find. The bright poster above was made to promote Gion nemonogatari: Kyô musume no shoya, which we doubt ever had an English release, but if it had might have been known as something like Gion Sleeping Story: Musume's Wedding Night. Gion is a geisha district in Kyoto, and there's a geisha on the poster, so we're guessing this one is about geishas. Sex and perversion with geishas, since it's a pinku film. Call it a highly educated guess. It premiered in Japan today in 1972.
JapanKyotoWorld EigaGion nemonogatari: Kyô musume no shoya祇園寝物語 京娘の初夜Maria Ogawaposter artcinemapinkusexploitation
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 10 2020 |
Lindberg gets full exposure in Japan.
This is a very interesting Japanese poster for the Swedish sexploitation flick Exponerad, which premiered in Japan today in 1972 as 露出 or Roshutsu, which both mean “exposure.” The film was known in English speaking countries as Exposed and (misleadingly) Diary of a Rape. There are some scans of this piece online, but not of this quality. We talked about the movie last year. Check here.
And as a bonus, because Exponerad is a movie that deals with daydreams, we have below all of our most dreamlike images of Lindberg. No surprise, right? If you visit our site often, you know she's a mainstay, so today we're just adding to what was already a substantial treasure trove. All of these ethereal shots are Exponerad promos, and all are striking. We have many more Lindberg rarities, and you can bank on us sharing those down the line.
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 8 2020 |
Satoko Sato gets into another tight spot.
Above are a couple of beautiful rarities, colorful promos for the Japanese pinku flick Yoru no saizensen: Onna gari, known in English as Frontline of the Night - Women Hunting. It stars Satoko Sato, Kôji Wada, and Tatsuya Fuji in the tale of a man who spends four years in prison for assaulting a Yakuza, but returns to battle them upon his release. The movie is probably most remembered for a comedic seduction bit involving a woman dressed as Che Guevara, beard and all, and the scenes of Sato in a brass chastity belt. It was not the only time she wore a bizarre bondage get-up. She did it in the sequel Yoru no saizensen: Tôkyô onna chizu. Check the visuals here. As interesting as this film sounds, we had no luck tracking it down. But we wanted you to see these nice pieces of art anyway. Yoru no saizensen: Onna gari premiered in Japan today in 1969.
JapanNikkatsuYoru no saizensen: Onna gariFrontline of the Night - Women HuntingSatoko Sato佐藤サト子Kôji WadaTatsuya FujiChe Guevaraposter artcinemapinkusexploitation
| Modern Pulp | Jan 28 2020 |
And at this rate it looks like they'll outlast us all.
Is it one of the greatest allegorical science fiction films ever made? Well, sci-fi is conducive to metaphor, so the list of contenders is long, but certainly John Carpenter's They Live is somewhere in the mix. You see its Japanese poster above. The film invaded Japan today in 1989, after premiering in the U.S. during November of the previous year. We suspect this one falls into the category of movies many have been told they should see, but few have bothered to make the time for. We're here to suggest that you make the time. The premise is ingenious—Earth's ruling class are actually aliens in human form. What do these offworld one-percenters want? Mainly for humans to obliviously embrace behavior that is beneficial to the maintenance of elite power. To that end the everyday world people see is a mere curtain over a deeper reality totally geared toward making humans obey, consume, conform, and reproduce.
Carpenter said about the film, which is based on the 1963 short story, “Eight O'Clock in the Morning,” by Ray Nelson, “The picture's premise is that [our current economic system] is run by aliens from another galaxy. Free enterprisers from outer space have taken over the world, and are exploiting Earth as if it's a third world planet. And as soon as they exhaust all our resources, they'll move on to another world.” The idea is certainly poignant in this age of inequality, low wage employment, population explosion, environmental ruin, and all-powerful international corporate overlords that somehow are regarded by U.S. courts as “people.”
The aliens of They Live, not unlike corporations, want to go unchallenged while they suck the planet dry. But Roddy Piper, playing a drifter passing through Los Angeles, happens upon a small resistance who have made special sunglasses that penetrate the disguise laid over the world. When he dons these glasses his mind is simply blown by what they reveal. Even the money people work so hard for is nothing more than plain white paper bearing the message: “This is your god.” Carpenter builds the drama of They Live slowly, and plays it for laughs on multiple occasions, but the sense of dread mounts as Piper and co-star Keith David realize the illusions that maintain order are broadcast from a massive fleet of hovering drones, and if they don't expose the truth perhaps nobody will.
We've seen They Live several times, and loved it more on each occasion. Generally, people who don't like it find it too slow, which is ironic considering it's a film that suggests people are deliberately being prevented from taking the crucial time needed to see what's real and what isn't. They Live makes us imagine what would happen if aliens really did arrive on Earth. Most likely they would be sifting through the ruins of what was once here, and they'd say, “This strange species had diverse art that often discussed hostile alien invasions, but it appears they didn't realize the thing that would destroy them was already here—it was their own economics.”
We've seen They Live several times, and loved it more on each occasion. Generally, people who don't like it find it too slow, which is ironic considering it's a film that suggests people are deliberately being prevented from taking the crucial time needed to see what's real and what isn't. They Live makes us imagine what would happen if aliens really did arrive on Earth. Most likely they would be sifting through the ruins of what was once here, and they'd say, “This strange species had diverse art that often discussed hostile alien invasions, but it appears they didn't realize the thing that would destroy them was already here—it was their own economics.”
JapanLos AngelesThey LiveJohn CarpenterRoddy PiperKeith DavidRay Nelsonposter artcinemasci-fimovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 23 2020 |
Cold steel is fine but hot lead is a hell of a lot more efficient.
This poster was made for the classic Tomisaburô Wakayama gangster flick Kapone no shatei yamato damashi, known in English as A Boss with the Samurai Spirit. It's the third one we've found for the movie, and as you already know from our previous posts, these round promos are rare. They were made only by Toei Company, as far as we know, and only for a few years during the late 1960s and early ’70s. We have others we'll get to later. For now, see two more examples here and here, and a third in this group. Also, you can see the other two Kapone posters here and here.
JapanToei CompanyKapone no shatei yamato damashiカポネの舎弟 やまと魂A Boss with the Samurai SpiritCapone's Younger Brother: Heart and SpeculationTomisaburô Wakayamaposter artcinema
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 3 2020 |
It's rough going for anyone who gets on Meiko's bad side.
Above we have another promo poster for Meiko Kaji's pinky violence actioner Nora-neko rokku: Bôsô shudan ’71, aka Stray Cat Rock: Crazy Rider ’71, aka Stray Cat Rock: Beat ’71, which premiered in Japan today in—you guessed it—’71. This great poster is just as rare as the others we shared. See those here and here.
JapanNikkatsuStray Cat Rock: Beat ’71Stray Cat Rock: Crazy Rider ’71Nora-neko rokku: Bôsô shudan ‘71野良猫ロック 暴走集団’71Meiko Kajiposter artcinemapinkupinky violence
