Product Description

Behind the Pink Curtain takes the reader on a wild joy ride deep into the hinterlands of Japanese culture, society and radical politics by way of the weird but wonderful world of the Pink Film and Roman Porno genres. Behind the Pink Curtain focuses on the art and industry of one of the most notorious sectors of Japanese filmmaking, the erotic Pink Film, or pinku eiga genre, and the closely related Roman Porno films produced by Nikkatsu studios from 1971 to 1988. A phenomenon distinct from the cheaply-produced hardcore Adult Video (AV) market, from the early 60s onwards major Japanese film studios and independent producers alike have kept up a conveyor belt level of output of pornographic features intended purely for cinema release. Still today, just short of 100 such titles are shot on 35mm every year intended for screening in a specialist network of adult cinema across the nation. In recent years, many have found themselves released on DVD in the West or screened at international film festivals, while many of Japan s most noted filmmakers today have cut their teeth in this industry. Just how close are the links between the arthouse and the grindhouse in Japan? Read about the ins and outs of Japanese censorship from the wartime onwards, and how topless deep sea diving girls came to woo local audiences in the 50s. Learn how a TV nature documentary maker ended up helming nude female Tarzan movies, and how 60s mavericks Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi met up with John and Yoko at Cannes while on the way to the Golan Heights to make a film about Palestinian revolutionaries. How Deep Throat s Harry Reems wound up in Tokyo starring in a zany sex comedy about a penis transplant gone awry, and how one of Japan s most famous literary figures ended up the subject of the country s first gay porno movie. How one of Nikkatsu s leading directors went it alone to make a film about powerboat racing and ended up in the bad books of the Yakuza, and how the anti-Bush sex farce Horny Home Tutor: Teacher s Love Juice came to be re-titled as The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai and became one of the most talked about Japanese films of recent years, playing at over twenty international film festivals. Based on extensive interviews with many of the leading figures in the field, Behind the Pink Curtain is a colorful and exhaustive trawl through Japan s most vibrant and prolific filmmaking sector.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #299954 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
"All you need to know about the cutting edge of Japanese film - animated, inventive and imaginative." --Donald Richie

Review
"All you need to know about the cutting edge of Japanese film - animated, inventive and imaginative." -- Donald Richie

About the Author
Jasper Sharp is co-editor of the Japanese film website Midnight Eye and has curated for London s Raindance Film Festival and acted as an advisor for the Japan Foundation UK s annual touring season since 2005. He co-wrote The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film with FAB Press author Tom Mes. His writing has appeared in numerous countries, including the USA, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Hong Kong and Holland. He contributes liner notes and audio commentaries to DVD releases of Japanese films worldwide, and has written chapters for several anthology collections.

Customer Reviews

A Must Have For Japanese Pink Film Fanatics
Jasper Sharp's encyclopedic approach to Japanese "pink" films is highly anticipated and rightfully so given Chris D's so-so Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film, Schilling's enjoyable No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema (Cinema Classics) and Hunter's comprehensive Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood and Madness in Japanese Cinema (Creation Cinema Collection). Sharp's highly methodical approach to the subject (1960s to the present) may be considered a bit "dry," but it is well written and academics will appreciate it. A great draw of this work includes an amazing number of images both in black and white and color (unlike Chris D's advertised work). Each chapter ends with detailed footnotes and as a bonus each film is included in the appendix listed by film director. Sharp also acknowledges DVD re-issues of the films (i.e., Madame O, Entrails of a Beautiful Woman, and Daydream-re-issued by Something Weird). If you are familiar with Kimstim, Synapse Films, and other companies re-issuing Pink classics; you'll be elated that an author has a finger on the pulse of Pink fans.

A "must-read" for those interested in Japanese Cinema
While the volume of the output of any part of the Japanese film industry makes truly comprehensive studies impossible, Sharp goes a long way towards giving an in-depth overview (if such a thing is truly possible) of the Japanese sex film industry, especially in light of its importance as a training ground and launching pad for many of the luminaries of Japanese cinema.
Thanks to nature of Japanese obscenity and censorship laws, and the lack of anti-sexuality culture that is part and parcel of the Abramic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) the soft-core sex film, or Pinku-Eiga, literally "Pink-Film" was a staple of the Japanese cinema from the mid 1960s through the late 1980s as the film and theatre companies tried to compete with television for viewers. Since this was the largest segment of the independent film market in Japan, it was the primary area for talented writers, directors and cinematographers to gain skills and some recognition without the coveted degrees from the most prestigious colleges and long apprenticeships required by the major studios.
While the book is chock full of racy pictures and clips from the films discussed, it is primarily a history of the industry and its major players, not an exhaustive collection of reviews or analyses of the films themselves. As such, it should be required reading for any student of Japanese cinema and/or the Japanese film industry, as it makes clear the connection between this barely legitimate end of the industry with the better known and more respectable output of the major studios. In addition, several chapters chart the frequently lost and forgotten connection of the Japanese avant-garde art community, the independent film community and the radical global politics of the late sixties and early seventies.
Because of it's cover and the volume of photos one can see by flipping through the pages, it's easy to dismiss "Behind the Pink Curtain" as just a risque, exploitation coffee-table book masquerading as film scholarship, but it is truly an in depth history of an often neglected part of the Japanese film industry, and to date the most exhaustive treatment of the subject published in the English language.