Femmes Fatales | Nov 12 2021 |

I like my men stirred, not shaken.
Above you see Japanese actress and singer Rushia Santô, who we last encountered in the film Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede, aka Female Teacher: In Front of the Students. As an actress she worked in the misleadingly named genre of roman porno (romantic pornography), which consists of non-explicit but highly sexual dramas and comedies. She made only six movies. That's not many, but with titles like Mischievous Lolita: Attacking the Virgin from Behind (Itazura Lolita: Ushirokara virgin) and Sexy doll: Abe Sada sansei, we'd wager her imprint on Japanese cinema was indelible. This shot is from around 1982.
Vintage Pulp | Apr 9 2021 |

When they say high school is torture usually they're kidding.
The beautiful Rushia Santô made only a few films during her brief career. One of them was the Nikkatsu Studios roman porno flick Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede, aka Female Teacher: In Front of the Students. Santô plays a high school teacher, and since her school looks like a prison it's no surprise she experiences a prison style shower rape. The student she eventually accuses of attacking her—Tôru Nakane, who the audience knows is innocent—retaliates by grabbing her and keeping her prisoner over spring break. This being a Nikkatsu film, that imprisonment naturally involves making Santô realize she's a sex maniac, and by the end of the break Santó, the studly Nakane, and his girlfriend Rina Oka are humping like rabbits.
The mystery that isn't a mystery is finally solved in the last part of this 70-minute sprint. There are some weak attempts at humor here and there, such as during a sex scene between Nakane and Oka when he's simultaneously eating a sticky bun and she's eating a banana, but the moment for cinematic discussions of whether some women like to be submissive—still ongoing as recently as in 2015's Fifty Shades of Grey—has definitively passed. As far as we're concerned anything done between consenting adults is fine, but consenting is the operative word. Nikkatsu films often play around with that concept, but these days such explorations are discordant, to say the least. Like all the obscure movies we watch, we're looking for forgotten gems. This is no gem, and maybe just needs to be forgotten. Onna kyôshi: Seito no me no maede premiered in Japan today in 1982.

