Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture!

Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! (発禁本「美人乱舞」より責める！, Hakkinbon Bijin Ranbu Yori: Semeru!) aka Torture! and From the Banned Book "Wild Dance of a Beautiful Woman": Torture![2] is a 1977 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Noboru Tanaka and starring Junko Miyashita. Set during the Taishō period, it uses Nikkatsu's superior technical resources to create what Jasper Sharp calls a pink film-style "sumptuous festival of cruelty" portraying the artistic life of the photographer, writer and kinbakushi, Seiu Itō.[3]

Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture!
Theatrical poster for Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! (1977)
Directed byNoboru Tanaka[1]
Written byAkio Ido
StarringJunko Miyashita
Music byJirō Takada
CinematographyMasaru Mori
Edited byShinji Yamada
Distributed byNikkatsu
Release date
February 23, 1977
Running time
83 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Synopsis

The life of the S&M-theme artist and author Seiu Itō is depicted in the film. His artistic life and Sadian philosophy, inspired by his torturing of his two wives and Tae, his favorite prostitute, are portrayed as shown in his journalistic writings. Tae is eventually driven insane due to Itō's attentions.[4][5] The movie stars Junko Miyashita as Tae.[6]

Reception

Because of the film's more overtly sado-masochistic theme, Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! received less critical acclaim than the previous two entries in Tanaka's Showa trilogy-- A Woman Called Sada Abe (1975) and Watcher in the Attic (1976).[4] However, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser give Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! a top-rating of four out of four stars. Noting Tanaka's use of "dark images, obsessive nihilistic philosophy, and gravely somber atmosphere", they write, "Like all of the movies from Tanaka's Mad Love period, it's filmed in matter-of-fact, non-flinching style, creating a dangerous ambivalence towards traditional concepts of right and wrong, sanity and insanity."[4]

Allmovie calls the film "an amoral masterpiece" and one of "the most disturbing films ever released by the Nikkatsu studio". Writing that the dark and oppressive nature of the film works in its favor, the review concludes, "[t]he cumulative effect is quite powerful, and not for the faint of heart."[5]

Availability

Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! was released theatrically in Japan on February 23, 1977.[1] It was released for home video in VHS format on January 12, 1996,.[6] It was released on DVD on September 22, 2006 as part of Geneon's fifth wave of Nikkatsu Roman porno series.[7][8]

Bibliography

English
  • Hakkinbon Bijin Ranbu Yori: Semeru! at AllMovie
  • "HAKKINBON BIJIN RANBU YORI: SEMERU!". Complete Index to World Film. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  • Hakkinbon bijin ranbu yori: semeru! (1977) on IMDb
  • Sharp, Jasper (2008). Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. Guildford: FAB Press. pp. 134, 153, 363. ISBN 978-1-903254-54-7.
  • Weisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books : Asian Cult Cinema Publications. p. 61. ISBN 1-889288-52-7.

Japanese

Notes
  1. "発禁本「美人乱舞」より　責める！". Japanese Cinema Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  2. Sharp, Jasper (2008). Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. Guildford: FAB Press. pp. 134, 153, 363. ISBN 978-1-903254-54-7.
  3. Sharp, p. 153.
  4. Weisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books : Asian Cult Cinema Publications. p. 61. ISBN 1-889288-52-7.
  5. Firsching, Robert. "Hakkinbon Bijin Ranbu Yori: Semeru!: Overview". Allmovie. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  6. 発禁本「美人乱舞」より　責める！(邦画 ) (in Japanese). Kinema Junpo. Archived from the original on 2012-03-24. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  7. ジェネオン エンタテインメントよりＤＶＤリリース (in Japanese). P.G. Web Site. Archived from the original on 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
  8. "DVD】発禁本「美人乱舞」より　責める！" (in Japanese). allcinema.net. Retrieved 2010-05-16.
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