Story Movie
Once upon a time, long ago, under the first Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa, the Bohachi clan did the shogunate a great favor by helping to quell political unrest by delivering hundreds of women for the workers. In gratitude, the shogunate granted the Bohachi clan a monopoly on prostitution. But times change, competitors raise their heads, and the paths of Bohati and the murderer Shino, who has big problems with the authorities, cross. In exchange for temporary protection from the authorities, Sino will kill everyone who interferes with the clan. The Bohati women - half prostitute, half killer - will help him.
Review 4K Movie
Sometimes you can't find the right words to express your honorable respect for the cinematography. And who told you that what was filmed long ago cannot be relevant in our difficult days? Forty years have passed since the release of this film, and the subtle existential problems of a non-humanized society still ring alarm bells to this day. How many incredible allusions and subtle parallels can be caught in this Japanese film!
Judge for yourself: 75% of the screen time is occupied by girls' charms in various angles and situations, even the faces of the actresses are not so often glimpsed in the frame as their breasts. Intentional eroticism? Of course not! The problems of the textile industry have never been greater. Synthetic fabrics require more and more energy resources, and there is no longer enough silk or linen for natural fabrics. Garment factory workers have long ago scrubbed their hands bloody just to cover Asia's naked body, and everyday life laughs louder and louder at their efforts. With breasts (unexpectedly large in size for the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun) in the frame, the director seems to hint at who originally nourished the soulless world with his subtle philosophy, whose traditions are so unceremoniously trampled. And that is why the battle scenes are more expressive than anything else, they seem to tell the viewer that they are ready to stand guard and protect the culture of the East. YOU SHALL NOT PASS and all that.
It is worth paying attention to a seemingly unnoticeable nuance: completely naked girls in a clear field suddenly acquire cold weapons, but even all of them can't overpower the almost motionless Yakuza. What was the author trying to say? Oh! He laments the place of Asian countries on the geopolitical map of the world: they are naked, almost defenseless before the thirsty Europe and the United States, sometimes they may seem formidable, but a dangerous enemy, so fashionably dressed and modernly armed, will conquer them without a glance. Japan would beg for help, but she is too proud to let her frail body be used by others. Remember the scene where the protagonist, Shino, talks about duty and purpose, with his head at the level of women's pubes, shamefully covered with palms: these countries will NEVER reveal all their secrets and will behave according to a code of honor.
And the Asian countries themselves are not friends, but only coexist side by side. Shino demonstrates his prowess by cutting down a gun pointed at him with his katana. Tradition versus borrowing. Authenticity vs. imposition of foreign culture. Who invented gunpowder? The rampaging Chinese are barbaric and inept (according to the Japanese themselves), cunning and cruel people (not only according to the Japanese). And the Land of the Rising Sun rejects these foreign gifts, preferring its own, native.
Man and woman are Yo and Yin (Japanese analogs of Yin and Yang), black and white, bad and good. A bound, blonde-haired woman appears in the frame. Who is she? A random foreigner. And on her, like butterflies on fire, the warriors of the Bohachi clan fly, they lick her hungrily, try to humiliate her and humiliate themselves. It's as if the maidens have gone mad after seeing the forbidden fruit. Here again is a proclamation of the eternal struggle between one's own, the good, and another's, the harmful. The forbidden and the dirty beckon, but what comes after? Dark-haired Japan is drowning in the appealing groans of the light Western culture.
No less acute in the picture are the problems of honest business and unfair competition. A young and precocious samurai came to the lands back in the 18th century and established the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. As a decent citizen of his country, he paid taxes, created jobs, attracted customers, organized open days and other PR-actions with buffets and sake. But then came the nefarious kichigiri (prostitutes working without pimps), trying to take away the clientele, as well as low quality of services, jeopardizing the reputation of honest toilers of bed labor. This is a nightmare with cold sweat for any entrepreneur.
Corruption can be talked about forever, not only in Japan. Two irreconcilable clans - Bohachi and Kurokawa - are trying to seize power not only in the sphere of intimate services. They would have long ago agreed on whose territory is whose, would have conquered what they needed, and went their separate ways. But no. The Emperor's viceroy deliberately pushes them against each other, demands a useless reconciliation and hints at weighty bribes. This is a perfect example of how the government is strangling the small business sector.
The head of the Bohachi clan reports, “On New Year's Day, women don't work and important men are forced to spend the holiday with their families and only book whores for January 2.” It's time to talk about the irregular work week and relationship problems in families. But 81 minutes of the movie is too short to reveal two whole social problems. Why only two, though? Shino is often surrounded by love priestesses, entangled like a spider in a net. One normal man and many women - again gender injustice, to find a decent husband - a real problem of the modern world, because there are so many competitors, and the rest of the men - not needed.
Once again, the head of the Bohachi clan. At the end of the movie, he grins greedily, revealing his jagged black teeth to the shocked audience. Doesn't he use toothpaste? No, that's not it. The image of a belligerent and greedy man seems to have been transferred to his mouth, whose dark underbelly is so reminiscent of oil flows. People fight over black gold, go crazy, oil money is the bloodiest in the modern world. Then there's the money-dollars raised by selling drugs. And what killed the main villain? Opium vapors! What weakened the protagonist? The same opium in sake. This is how Teruo Ishii spoke about drug addiction and the fight against this addiction, how strong the human will is and how weak the human flesh is.
In general, this is not a cheap movie with a multidimensional erotic context, it is a subtle proclamation about the realities of the surrounding reality. They don't make anything else in Japan.
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