Based on a bdsm novel written by the acclaimed Oniroku Dan, Onna kyôshi nawa jigoku, aka Female Teacher: Rope Hell, is yet another Japanese exploration of the pleasures, pains, and limits of sexual obsession and bondage. Frankly, this one is a bit tedious. There’s a razor thin line between thoughtful and dangerous when dealing with this kind of material. When Japanese films, in particular, end up on the wrong side of that line, you really have a mess on your hands. We understand, yes, that bad men aren’t always punished in real life. But this isn’t real life. It's just a movie, and punishment is key. In fact, for us it’s the entire point. It’s the only thing that makes these films watchable. But in this case, the abusive male ties up the two objects of his obsession and is tormenting them when one of his candles sets an accidental fire. He and the bound women burn to death. His obsession destroyed them all. That’s the end. Roll credits. Hope we didn’t ruin it for you.

The fixation Japanese film has with sexual abuse is curious. It often occurs for pretty straightforward narrative reasons—rape, or perhaps the murder of husbands and children, or often all three, are the triggers that transform women into terrifying revenants. The mostly thirty-something writers and directors who conceived pinku plots were taking swipes at Japan’s patriarchal social structure by first explicitly revealing a sexist status quo, then allowing feminine power to demolish it. Or so it seems to us. In that way pinku does not differ from blaxploitation. In those, it’s a racist status quo that is revealed and demolished. However revenge movies represent only a slice of the Japanese whole. Many films in the roman porno sub-genre feature degradation without revenge, in which case we think it needs to be very carefully done to avoid endorsing such behavior. Major fail on that account here. All respect to Oniroku Dan, but excesses such as a forced enema and subsequent sloppy evacuation are not things we can get behind, so to speak. Onna kyôshi nawa jigoku premiered in Japan today in 1981.

Above is a poster for Genso fujin ezu, aka Fascination: Portrait of a Lady, aka Fantasy Portrait of a Wife, one of many S&M movies starring Naomi Tani, aka the Queen of Pink. In this one Tani plays Hisako, a bored housewife married to a conservative art professor. Hisako is beset by bizarre sexual daydreams, including one of being captured like a stray dog and stuck in a cage. Her frustrations soon center on Tachiki, a visionary art student her husband has expelled from school for being too modernist. Hisako and Tachiki soon begin meeting, and Tachiki introduces Hisako to a world of bondage and other dubious delights. The husbanddoesn't really understand the extent of his wife’s straying until she doesn’t come home one night. Not entirely her fault, though, as she’s tied up in Tachiki’s flat. In the morning Tachiki is inspired by lingering rope impressions on Hisako’s flesh to attempt something more permanent—he tattoos her entire body with a rope design. Hisako’s husband, you can be sure, is going to be pissed.

That’s all we’ll say about the plot of Genso fujin ezu. The idea of a person’s transformation taking on psychic then physical dimensions is pretty clear, but daydreams of domination and humiliation just don’t resonate for us. Bondage and rope arts occupy an important place in Japanese culture, so maybe that’s simply the default direction for bored cinema wives, the same way American movies from the period often featured women taking a walk on the wild side with hot-rodders or counterculture types. That’s our best guess, anyway. Oniroku Dan is the mind behind the literary genre that birthed these films, and if we’d read any of his books we’d have a better idea exactly why Hisako veers into S&M, but failing that we’ll just take the movie on its own merits. Genso fujin ezu premiered today in 1977.

Last week we shared a few images from a new bondage collection called Strictly Bondage created by Berlin-based publishers Goliath, and mentioned that the book we received was one of two. Above you see the cover of the second collection—Kinky Bondage Obsession. How different can two bondage books be? You’d be surprised. Shot by Jim Weathers, Kinky Bondage Obsession is of course about the restraints, but more so than Strictly Bondage, it’s about color and texture. Weathers’ models are beautifully garbed—clad in metallic purples and shimmering crimsons, sheathed in skin hugging vinyl and nylon. Rubber, faux fur, PVC, and patent leather abound. The action takes place in opulent, suede-walled salons appointed with wooden accessories. In fact, the book could double as a catalog for expensive bondage outfits and shabby chic home decorations.

The press material references David Lynch and that’s easy to see. Weathers has made Blue Velvet with the lights turned up a notch, before Dennis Hopper barged in, screamed amyl nitrate-fueled filth and ruined the party. An all female party, by the way, which is another contrast to Strictly Bondage. The lack of men in this thick book may seem to bring the threat level down, but on the other hand, since most of the four-hundred-plus shots are solo—that is, they feature only a bound woman—you have to wonder who exactly is doing the restraining. Possibly it's you, you kinky devil. But some scenes do feature a dominator, always another woman, and the implicit question presented in those deals with gender expectations. Beyond the technicolor outfits and opulent interiors, do you see pure domination, mutual consent, or mere artifice?  The answer may reveal your attitudes about women and power.

A long while back we mentioned the Japanese art of kinbaku or shibari (we won’t get into the debate over which term is more correct) and said we’d discuss it again, but of course never did. Well, we were reminded of that promise when Berlin-based rebel publishers Goliath sent us a couple of their books. Ostensibly, they’re coffee table volumes, but of a rather provocative type, dealing with bondage as art. Today we’re looking only at Strictly Bondage, and we’ll get to the other book Kinky Bondage Obsession later this week.

The book’s foreword asks: “What is art? What is erotic? What is porn? What is interesting?” Strictly Bondage is a little of all those, and it’ll be living on our coffee table for some time, or at least until our friends bring their kids by. We have several of the tamer images from the book’s interior below, and you can learn more about Victor Lightworship and Strictly Bondage at www.goliathbooks.com.

Above is a nice panel length poster for 1972’s Sukeban berûsu: mesubachi no chosen, aka Girl Boss Blues: Queen Bee’s Challenge, the second entry in the Girl Boss series made by Toei Studios in the early 1970s. This one stars Reiko Ike (before the tattoo), along with Chiyoko Kazama, and Miki Sugimoto in an appearance just lengthy enough for her to get a couple of bottles of cola sprayed up her ya-ya. If you can wrest your eyes from the constantly recurring tableaux of perfect skin, there is a plot, and it involves a pair of girl gangsters/bitter rivals captured by a yakuza boss and subjected to various sadistic tortures (including that old Japanese favorite—rope bondage, aka kinbaku-bi). Of course, the abuse in these films is inevitably followed by much deserved revenge against the evil males, up close and bloody. But it isn’t all violence and vengeance. There are some effective moments of comedy, and of course, the film is beautifully shot. All-in-all, Sukeban berûsu: mesubachi no chosen is a must-see for pinku fans. You’ll learn exactly how effective a handful of soap foam can be for covering a woman’s bush.

If there’s one indisputably true statement about Japanese cinema, it’s this: they will try anything. 1974’s Hana to hebi, aka Flower and Snake, is a bondage comedy based on a novel by Oniroku Dan, who specialized in S&M fiction. For the screen version, Nikkatsu Studios recruited reliable sexploitation queen Naomi Tani, who had already appeared in a previous version of the same film entitled Hana to hebi yori: niku no shiiku, aka Flower and Snake: Rearing the Flesh. Where that version was a mere pinku film, this new version would be a roman porno—which simply meant Nikkatsu would spend more money in an effort to elevate the genre into something mainstream Japanese would accept. In the film, Tani plays an aristocratic wife who asks for a divorce but instead is forced into bondage and submission by a man hired for the task by her husband. She experiences a sexual awakening, the employee forms an emotional bond, and complications ensue from there. We haven’t read the novel, but apparently it’s very different from the film and its adaptation was a source of friction between studio and author. But it didn’t matter—Hana to hebi was a smash. It was the first of Nikkatsu’s many roman porno flicks, and the first of what would become a Hana to hebi franchise. It premiered in Japan today in 1974.

Well, we said we’d explore Japanese bondage arts a bit more, so here’s a nice beginning—a collection of colorful SM magazines from the 1970s. We’ll show you what’s inside one of these later.