Tetsuji Takechi

A very early example, perhaps the first ever, of Japanese “pink” cinema from infamous director Tetsuji Takechi. A woman visits the dentist and ends up descending into a world of surreal S&M fantasies…Read More »

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Sayo has just celebrated her sixteenth birthday when she attends a temple festival. On her way back she sees a large cherry tree which is infamous for the legend of dead white horse. When her fiancé returns from war and visits her he comes across a white horse which he takes in.Read More »

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Takechi’s third film, The Dream of the Red Chamber or Crimson Dream (Kokeimu, 1964), was released less than two months after Daydream. The film depicts the lurid and violently erotic dreams of a writer, his wife and his sister, after having spent a night out drinking and visiting sex shows. The Dream of the Red Chamber underwent extensive censorship before the government would allow it to be released. About 20% of the film’s original content was cut by Eirin, rendering the film virtually incoherent, and this footage is now considered lost.Read More »

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Based on the classic novel by Murasaki Shikibu, written over 1000 years ago. Genji, the son of the emperor, has gained renown among the nobility of Kyoto for his charm and good looks, yet he cannot stop himself from pursuing the one object of desire he must never obtain: his father’s young and beautiful bride. Following the tragic consequences of his obsession, Genji wanders from one affair to another, always seeking some sort of completion to his life.Read More »

Synopsis:
Review from Midnight Eye:
Credits roll over a static shot of a prostitute, lying prone on her back with all the aloofness of Manet’s Olympia and nothing but the prostrate figure of a hulking black American GI stretched over her to mask her nudity. As the camera slowly pans along her bare flank, she raises her arm above her head to reveal a dense thicket of underarm hair.

Provocative stuff in a country where the one real taboo in the sexual arena is the onscreen portrayal of pubic hair, but it wasn’t this scene which landed its director in court for Japanese cinema’s first obscenity trial. As the screaming sound of jet planes which dominate the soundtrack of this brazen opening might suggest, Black Snow’s subversion goes beyond the mere carnal.
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