ACF 1571: THE DEVIL'S FEAST due out on DVD next Tuesday, July 31st

The Devil's Feast / Oni no kaen

Directed by Kenji Hanyuu

Screenplay by Hiroshi Yoshino

Based on a novel by Oniroku Dan

Japan, 2007, 67 minutes

Presented by Switchblade Pictures

Oniroku Dan (April 16, 1931 - May 6, 2011) was a famous, popular and prolific Japanese writer of S&M novels, many of which were made into films. The Devil's Feast will be the latest one to make it to U.S. shores when it comes out on DVD next Tuesday, July 31st.

Shiro Okamoto is the talented advertising director at Nippo Newspaper, a small neighborhood paper. His wife Shizuyo is a lovely and well-endowed young thing, devoted to her husband. Unfortunately Shiro can't seem to see his nuptial duties through to completion. Shizuyo repeatedly apologizes each time  Shiro fails to perform as expected, which only makes her frustrated husband angry at her.

Shiro tries to pleasure his wife Shizuyo

Shiro's sex life perks up when the lovely Kumiko Nishikawa joins the editorial staff of the paper. She is enticingly introduced by a series of shots taken by a camera that faces backwards towards her and tracks along with her as she walks down a hallway: first her feet and ankles, then her short skirt and thighs, and finally her face and neck. She's smart and talented, as well as great looking, and could have been working at a bigger, better paper, but has chosen instead to join the staff at Nippo.

Shiro and Kumiko soon are going at it full bore and often at the Oubi Inn. With her, he has no problem performing up to expectations. In fact, he becomes even more amorous when she insists that he bind her with ropes.

Kumiko gets tied up by Shiro

All hell breaks loose, however, after Kumiko learns about an old scandal from Shiro. It seems that 10 years ago Genkai Yoshioka, the founder of a new age religion called The Sutoka Group, was suspected in a series of violent rapes. He was never charged and the matter seemingly has been forgotten by all except Shiro and the head of Nippo Newspaper.

When Kumiko publishes an article exposing the history of rape suspicions, the financial health of the paper, which relies heavily on Sutoka ads for revenue, and Shiro's job both are put in jeopardy. To placate Yoshioka, Shiro asks his wife to serve as a "shrine maiden" -- whatever that means -- to the cult leader for a week. Will all be forgiven by the sadistic cult master, or will Shizuyo be served as just another dish at the devil's feast?

Shizuyo as "shrine maiden" 

There are numerous soft-core sex scenes in the film, and both actresses are lovely to behold. The three leads acquit themselves well, and the production values are decent enough. What the film really has going for it is Oniroku Dan's story, which makes the whole thing very interesting, and not just prurient.

On the downside, the dubbed moans in some of the sex scenes can be a bit distracting. Somewhat surprisingly, the English subtitles are not removable; they are embedded in the film. And there are no meaningful special features, just DVD credits and trailers for three other releases from Switchblade Pictures.

Still, even though it's a bare-bones disc, the story, the female bodies and the sex scenes warrant an ACF Rating of 3 out of 4 stars. It's a good release that I'm quite comfortable recommending.

ACF 1513: VULGARIA at NYAFF

A photo shoot in producer To's office space

Vulgaria

Directed by Pang Ho-cheung

Hong Kong, 2012, 90 minutes

In Cantonese and Profanity with English subtitles

When: Friday, June 30, 2012 at 8:30 PM

North American Premiere

Where: New York Asian Film Festival

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street, New York, NY

Map here

Buy tickets

This hilarious, raunchy romp through the process of film-making as experienced by a CAT III Hong Kong producer is the Opening Night Film at this year's New York Asian Film Festival. And it more than lives up to its title.

To Wai-cheung (actor Chapman To) is a down-on-his luck producer of the kind of films whose premieres are never shown on TV. He's being interviewed about just what it is that a producer does by a Professor Cheng in front of an auditorium full of students. He explains that, just as pubic hair reduces friction between a couple fornicating, so a producer is responsible for easing friction between people! And we -- and the film -- are off!

In a series of flashbacks, To elaborates on what befell him in the course of making his latest movie. He has had to deal with his ex-wife, a barrister to whom he is behind in his alimony payments. She wants to severely curtail, if not completely end, his visitation rights with their daughter, Jacqueline. To's further suffers from his almost totally incompetent female assistant. And then there's the matter of a bounced check, or two, or three, or four, or more.

Double the pleasure of Clerks II?

A call from a friend results in him hooking up with Brother Tyrannosaurus, a mainland gangster with money to born and some peculiar culinary and sexual inclinations. Brother T says he'll back a film remake of the porn classic Confessions of a Concubine, providing it again stars Yum Yum Shaw, who was in the original.

This puts To in a quandary because, as Yum Yum indicates when she and To "do lunch," she wouldn't think allowing herself to be shot in the nude at her age and that no one would want to see her like that anyway. When he hooks up with a would-be starlet named Popping Candy, To comes up with a brilliant plan to make everyone happy. Tyrannosaurus will get the porn star he loved when he was a youth in the film he's financing. Yum Yum will get to star but not reveal her aged body. Popping Candy finally will get to star, at least to a degree, in a movie. And best of all, To will get to make a movie and hopefully lots and lots of money!

Director To with aspiring actress Popping Candy

[Popping Candy, I must note, is played by the lovely and extremely well-endowed Dada Chan (best known as "E-cup Babe"). The character's name, build, and nature bring to my mind the character Kandi (played by April Bowlbi) who became Alan's second wife and was in a total of fifteen episodes of Two and a Half Men from 2005 to 2007.]

Needless to say, things do not go according to To's plans. But he has an angle and an answer for everything. And he also proves himself to be a masterful manipulator as he slyly arranges to save his completed film from pre-release purgatory.

Subway Cinema, the group that presents the annual NYAFF, says this about Vulgaria: "Shot in just 12 days, on a microscopic budget, the actors, director, and screenwriter wrote this porno Apocalypse Now as they went along." All I can say in response is that to have come up with a comedic triumph like Vulgaria under these circumstances is INCREDIBLE!

This is a "be sure to see it if you can" screening. Just also be sure to stick around through the credits or you'll miss some final touches that further cement this film as one helluva terrific comedy.

I'll be there even though I've already watched a screener DVD. I can't wait to see it again, especially in the context of NYAFF's opening night with what's sure to be a huge, enthusiastic and appreciative audience.

Plus, special guest, director Pang Ho-cheung, will attend the screening!

This screening of Vulgaria is part of Return of the King: Hong Kong Movies 15 Years After the Handover, a festival sidebar update on the status of the Hong Kong film industry fiften years after the handover to Mainland China.

And for another positive review of Vulgaria, this one by Pierce Conran at AsianCineFest associate VCinema, click here.

ACF 1502: SULTRY ASSASSIN – THE APHRODISIAC KILL streets today

Sultry Assassin - the Aphrodisiac Kill

Written and directed by Kunichi Fujiwara

Japan, 2010, 68 minutes

Rin Saejima, played by Akiho Yoshizawa (Maidroid 1 & 2 and The 33D Invader), is master of the Shin Kage Itto-ryo dojo. She's also a secret guard of The Inner Garden, which means she's one of those who must handle matters that can't be allowed to become public knowledge. When a powerful forbidden aphrodisiac is passed around the Inner Palace, resulting in the deaths of three ladies so far, Rin goes undercover as a courtesan, but she's recognized and her infiltration fails.

Yasaburo, left, and Rin

She then enlists the aide of Yasaburo (Yohoshihiro Sato), a young man who has come to Edo from his remote village to study the sword arts. His investigation leads him first to Onami (Rin Kawai, in her first film role), who left the inner palace, and then to Miyuki (former U.S. adult film star Asami), an "intimate" friend of Onami's.

Onami and Yasaburo

Make no bones about it, this is a soft-core, sexploitation V-Cinema. As such, it works nicely. There are a sufficient number of sex scenes featuring bare breasts and simulated intercourse (no penetration here; remember, it's soft, not hard, core). These scenes are grafted on to a better-than-one-would-expect story line. And the action scenes, though a bit clumsy, are not bad considering this is sexploitation, not action.

Miyuki and Yasaburo

The one thing that is bothersome -- or humorous, depending on your opinion -- is the film's obviously bare-bones budget. For example, consider the fake top-knot headpiece worn by Kageyama (Ryoichi Inaba), a family friend of Rin's. You can see the line of it across the forehead of actor Ryoichi Inaba's forehead. (See image below.)

Actor Ryoichi Inaba could use some blending makeup on his forehead.

 
Directed by Kenichi Fujiwara (Zombie Hunter Rika, Zeroman R and Grafreeter Toki), Sultry Assassin - the Aphrodisiac Kill is based a line of “eroninja” novels by Junichi Yagami. It's release is part of Switchblade Pictures expansion of its line of live action features. The next film in the series will be Sultry Assassin 2 – Ninja Brainwash, due to be released on subtitled DVD on August 14th, 2012.

Sultry Assassin: the Aphrodisiac Kill is -- no surprise here-- unrated. It contains Violence, Nudity & Adult Situations, three of my favorite things. It's sexy fun for everyone (of appropriate age, that is). The disc's "Special Features" consist of trailers for other films available from Switchblade Pictures and DVD credits.

ACF 1463: SULTRY ASSASSIN 2 – NINJA BRAINWASH coming August 14th, 2012 from Switchblade Pictures

Switchblade Pictures has announced the newest addition to the company’s growing line of live action features: SULTRY ASSASSIN 2 – NINJA BRAINWASH.  The second in a new series of ero-ninja epics based on the novels by Junichi Yagami, SULTRY ASSASSIN 2  picks up where the previous installment, APHRODISIAC  KILL, left off  and is once again written and directed by Kenichi Fujiwara (ZOMBIE HUNTER RIKA, ZEROMAN R) and produced by the Take Shobo Company and Shintoho Pictures Co., Ltd.

Akiho Yoshizawa (MAIDROID 1 & 2, INVADER 33D) reprises the titular lead role, joined once again by WKA and WPKC world kickboxing champion Yoshihiro Sato, also the two-time winner of the Japanese national K-1 tournament (2006, 2007.)  Adding new faces to the spectacular selection of stunning physical specimens on display are a new duo of daring damsels in varying stages of distress and undress: exploitation star Shijimi (HELLDRIVER, MAIDROID 02,) and model/actress Yuzuka Kinoshita.

Summary: When Yui Kusunoki, an undercover geisha secretly in the employ of the Inner Secret Guard, disappears while en route to deliver an oral message concerning rogue Koga Ninja penetrations in southern Hikone, there’s just one sword-mistress who can go down after her: the notorious but very easy on the eyes Rin Saejima a.k.a. the Sultry Assassin!  But, knowing that her identity may have already been compromised as a result of the Koga’s Erotic Brainwashing technique, Rin devises a cunning plan of her own: one that involves bringing her “associate” Yasuburo back into her fold posing as her husband!

Get ready for sword-handling of every kind and lots of derring-do getting done in the most unexpected places (and locations) as the team behind the sizzling escapades of THE APHRODISIAC KILL reunite for a double-sworded, sordid ero-ninja epic that scholars of Japanese history would very much prefer that you don’t bring up in class: SULTRY ASSASSIN 2 – NINJA BRAINWASH.

SULTRY ASSASSIN 2 – NINJA BRAINWASH! feature will begin release on subtitled DVD on August 14th, 2012

ACF 1430: THE DEVIL’S FEAST coming in July on subtitled DVD from Switchblade Pictures

Switchblade Pictures has obtained the rights to THE DEVIL’S FEAST, the suspense and shibari erotic thriller from the late, internationally acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Oniroku Dan (FLOWER AND SNAKE, ROPE HELL, LADY BLACK ROSE).   Widely considered to be  Japan’s greatest master of dark erotica, Dan, who passed away in May of 2011, wrote over two hundred novels over his career, as well as the screenplays for many of Japan’s most successful and influential features, being especially known his popularization of the Japanese rope-bondage art of Shibari.

Directed by Kenji Hanyu from an adaption by Hiroshi Yoshino, THE DEVIL’S FEAST was distributed theatrically in Japan by Shintoho and stars Chihiro Koganezaki (CRUEL RESTAURANT), Yuya Matsuura (ZOMBIE HUNTER RIKA), Hitoshi Kajiki (RINKO 18) and famed AV model Arisa Matsumoto.  

Synopsis: When the beautiful Kumiko joins the editorial desk at a small local newspaper, the most deeply kept secrets of the rich and powerful leader of a religious cult suddenly begin finding their way into print in blistering exposes… scandalous exposes which have even more shocking repercussions for the paper’s sales manager, Okomoto, and his elegant wife Shizuyo.   Ensnared in the escalating war of wits and chains between the sadistic cult master and Kumiko, his former sex slave, Shizuyo finds herself strung in the rope bonds of a ruthless game that mixes sensuality with humiliation.

Could it be that Shizuyo’s only hope of release may come in the form of her own husband’s mistress?  Or is that exactly what the Devil has been planning on all along?  From the novels of the late legendary SM Master Oniroku Dan, prepare to be served a dark and unsettling vision of twisted lust and inhuman bondage:  THE DEVIL’S FEAST! 

THE DEVIL’S FEAST will begin Home Video release on subtitled DVD July 31st 2012.