| Vintage Pulp | Dec 27 2021 |
Tanaka and company roll the dice and all kinds of craps happen.
This poster was made to promote the samurai actioner Sengoku rokku hayate no onnatachi, known in English internationally as The Naked Seven, starring the wonderful Mari Tanaka, along with Michiyo Mako, Yuri Yamashina, and others. Tanaka plays Eno, leader of a gang of seven female bandits roaming the countryside of Edo era Japan ambushing and stealing to survive. Tanaka hooks up with a samurai and helps him rob 120 rifles from a powerful warlord, at which point she and her bandit cohort are blamed. Realizing they're in the very deepest shit, they head for the hills with the warlord's bad men—one of whom is indescribably worse than the rest—in hot pursuit. Tanaka has a sanctuary in mind, but ultimately she and her gang of deadlies may have to make a final stand with those rifles.
We assumed The Naked Seven was a samurai actioner, and it is, sort of, but genetically it's really a roman porno. The movie's alternate English title (which we didn't know until afterward) gives it away: Civil War Rock: Hurricane Girls! The Japanese word “sengoku,” from the film's official title, refers to the Sengoku Era in Japan, a time of violent upheaval also known as the Warring States Period, so the civil war reference in the alternate English title makes sense. Plus director Yasuharu Hasebe would make a string of roman porno flicks in the next several years, including Sukeban Deka: Dirty Mary and Maruhi honeymoon: Boko ressha, which, terrifyingly, is aka Secret Honeymoon: Rape Train. Even without knowing all that, the roman porno thought process behind The Naked Seven became clear as the pursuit unfolded in occasionally shocking fashion.
We thought we'd jettisoned roman pornos after the last effort we watched, but that Naked Seven title fooled us. It's obviously a play on The Magnificent Seven—but naked!—and yup, unclothed debauchery fit for a Game of Thrones episode abounds. There's also a sequence in which Tanaka's entire gang is waylaid bathing in a stream and have to flee bare-assed into the woods. They escape, though it's logistically unlikely. Similarly, roman porno chased us and caught us unawares, metaphorically naked in a streaming. Escape from our waylaying was as logistically easy as pressing stop, but we forged ahead until the end, and we did it for you. Here's the upshot. The period setting helps set the movie apart, so we consider it a passable effort from Nikkatsu Studios. Thankfully, it's not as shocking as some roman pornos, but proceed carefully—there are still scary things in the woods. Sengoku rokku hayate no onnatachi premiered in Japan today in 1972.
JapanNikkatsuSengoku rokku hayate no onnatachiThe Naked SevenSukeban Deka: Dirty MaryMaruhi honeymoon: Boko resshaSecret Honeymoon: Rape TrainMari TanakaKeiko TsuzukiKeiko AikawaMichiyo MakoYuri YamashinaHyôe EnokiYasuharu Hasebeposter artcinemaroman pornopinkumovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 11 2016 |
Apologies for the omission, Miss Michiyo.
Years ago we shared a poster for a Michiyo Mako roman porno flick and called her a “little known” actress. Well, live and learn. She wasn't little known—we knew little about Japanese film, is what the problem was. Now we know more, which is a benefit of maintaining this website, and we can report that Mako appeared in thirty movies between 1967 and 1976. Today we have promo posters for three of those to make up for giving her short shrift before. Top to bottom: Yorokobi no sekkusu, aka Sex of Joy or Nymph of Delight, Onna zakari: Mishitsu no yorokobi, aka Pleasure in the Secret Room, and 処女誘拐魔, for which we did not find a phonetic Japanese title. In English, these chracters would read something like Virgin Kidnapping Magic. More Mako posters later.
JapanYorokobi no sekkusuSex of JoyNymph of DelightOnna zakari: Mishitsu no yorokobiPleasure in the Secret RoomVirgin Kidnapping MagicMichiyo Makoposter artcinemapinkuroman pornosexploitation
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 24 2009 |
Guess who’s “coming” for dinner?
Here’s a lovely poster from the early 1970s for a film starring little known pinku actress Michiyo Mako. As far as we know this film never had a Western release, so without an official English title we have to make one up. We see symbols for “characteristic,” “banquet,” “human,” and “wife.” The fifth figure, in the middle, eluded us for what seemed like forever until we figured out it was a 5. So we’ll title this film “Banquet for Five Wives.” Or maybe we should title it "Banquet of Five Wives." It's always important to distinguish who's doing the cooking and who's doing the eating.
