Bloodtype Online
For the best of the Horror/Cult/Exploitation film experience
Naked Rashomon (1972)
Set in what I initially thought to be feudal Japan, but in reality being much closer to our own times, "Naked Rashomon" begins with a married couple who both work for a rich man. The husband is the man's samurai bodyguard, while his wife is the man's whore. Of course this situation is not optimal from the perspective of man nor wife, but the rich guy seems to like it. To make matters worse, because he cannot impregnate his barren wife, the boss knocks up the whore. If that's not grounds for divorce, I don't know what is, and the samurai kicks his wife to the curb (literally). As the prostitute gives birth (in an odd scene intercut with sex footage of the rich man's wife and her lover), the samurai is summoned to perform a horrible deed. The prostitute has given birth to not only a son who will become the heir to the fortune, but also to a twin daughter. As this cannot be allowed, the bodyguard is ordered to kill both mother and child. He does not, and they disappear into the sunset. Nineteen years later, the samurai finds the prostitute on her deathbed. He assumes responsibility for the now adult daughter, who is determined to follow in her mother's prostitute footsteps and hilarity ensues. Well, not really.
The first 45 minutes of this sex epic bored me to tears. The plot is fairly mundane and there's very little in the way of violence. The near constant sex scenes are optically fogged in a manner that you can't even imagine. No effort was made to merely block the genitals by placing an object in the foreground. Instead massive black or opaque dots, sometimes filling over a quarter of the screen, are superimposed over the actors genitals, buttocks, legs, chests, pretty much every thing but their heads. One scene even features a large black slash across the middle of the screen. It was at that point that I actually began writing this review, a first draft which I had to go back and alter significantly, as the last 30 minutes really picked up. Arterial spray, whippings, rope torture and creepy "my mother was a whore" flashbacks deliver and thus make this one a hard film to rate. Basically, if you can stay awake for three quarters of an hour, you'll be rewarded. Whether the reward is sufficient to compensate for the tedium that preceeds it will boil down to a matter of taste.
Acting as a possible tie-breaker between purchase, rental and avoid is the 22 minute documentary "The Erotic Empire" that Mondo Macabre have included on their DVD release of the film. It's a brief but engaging examination the history of Nikkatsu Studio's "Roman Porno" line of films. For the uninitiated, Roman Porno is an abbreviation of "Romantic Pornographic" and refers to a line of hundreds of films Nikkatsu produced in the '70's in an effort to combat slumping box office revenues. The content of the initial Roman Porno films was left largely to the directors, who could do anything they wanted as long as they included a sex scene every 10-15 minutes. This led to a wide variety of films, ranging from pure exploitation to more dramatic films such as this one. Of course, near the end of the decade, Roman Porno "descended" into the Violent Pink genre (not to be confused with Toei Studio's great "Pinky Violence" subgenre) and the films became more violent and more exploitive, as evidenced by the infamous "Angel Guts" series. In an interesting link, "Naked Rashomon" director Chusei Sone also directed two of that series, including the first and best, "Angel Guts: High School Co-ed". But back on point, Mondo Macabre's look at these films includes interviews with directors, actresses, film critics and film historian Jasper Sharp, making it well worth a look. There's also an additional 10 minute interview with Sharp solely on the topic of Sone, which is informative, but also sounds like it was recorded in a subway station. Seriously, I had to pause it twice because the sound coming out of my surround speakers made me think someone was trying to break into my house.
Those looking for nothing more than wall-to-wall exploitation and sleaze probably won't find too much to love in "Naked Rashomon", but the patient and those dedicated to Japanese cinema will probably want to snap up Mondo Macabre's new release pretty quickly. As for me, all I can say is that this one would have gotten a much lower rating if things had not gotten more violent near the film's conclusion.
Rating - ** (***1/2 for the special features on the DVD.)
-Mr. Monster
