Midnight Eye. History, an interview, reviews.

Addressing the post-war years, the second part of Roland Domenig's "History of Sex Education Films in Japan" has appeared at Midnight Eye. New reviews:

• "A look at the poster image of Anna Tsuchiya defiantly staring at us in full geisha garb is enough to know that this is the Kamikaze Girls reworking of Memoirs of a Geisha, with a bit of Marie Antoinette thrown in for good measure," writes Tom Mes. "Thankfully, there is more to Sakuran than meets the eye."

• Mes: "Originally made as an entry in the Love Collection series (whose other standouts were Kazuyoshi Kumakiri's Volatile Woman and Ryuichi Hiroki's Girlfriend: Someone Please Stop the World), Moon and Cherry is a lively, hugely enjoyable romp that reveals two unmistakable new talents," writer/director Yuki Tanada and Noriko Eguchi, "one of the most remarkable and exceptional actresses that Japanese cinema has had the privilege to entertain in years."

• Mes: "Of all the off-beat delights conjured up by the sorely missed Teruo Ishii, The Blind Woman's Curse must surely rank as one of the strangest."

Jamie Morris interviews Masashi Yamamoto and writes of his new film, "A Woman is Heard is billed as an 'Erotic-Pop-Suspense-Thriller' and stars the famous porn actress Sola Aoi.... For Yamamoto fans and Sola Aoi fans: this is a film that I don't think is his best (or hers?) but contains unique moments of, and investigations into, erotic fantasy and the daft 'love story' as we know it."

Posted by dwhudson at March 26, 2007 1:10 PM