Pinku Eiga

Roland Domenig roland.domenig
Fri Mar 12 07:05:27 EST 1999


Aaron is of course right that today the term seijin eiga - if it is used
at all - became a synonym for pink eiga. Since the depiction of
violence, that back in the Sixties was the other great concern of Eirin
for classifying a film as "intended for adults", nowadays doesn't seem
to pose a big problem, the depiction of sexuality and nudity remains the
last domain where there is no consensus in society yet. Things, however,
are changing and Eirin is trying to adapt to the new situation. 
The emerge of pornovideos (in Japanese AV or adult video) in the late
Seventies and the AV-Boom in the early and mid-Eighties could also have
been a reason why the term seijin eiga (adult film) became synonymous
for Sexfilms. 
It is noteworthy that for instance Kinema Junpo in its annual 'Best of
the Year'-February-Edition in the statistics treats pink eiga as
"(other) independent productions" while in the index they are listed
under the category seijin eiga.

Two additional notes:

>Re: There's also a new book that's worth a look. It's called:
Hasegawa Takuya. Itoshi no Buruufirumu (Tokyo: Seikyuusha, 1998). 

In fact Hasegawa's book is not new but only a reprint under a new titel.
The book was first published 1975 by Ritsufusha (I'm not sure whether
this reading is correct?) as "Buruufirumu monogatari". Hasegawa used
then his penname Miki Mikio. A second reprint came out 1981 by Seibunsha
under the same Titel although this time buruufirumu was written in
katakana and not as in the first print in hiragana. 

>Re: Suo Masayuki's HENTAI KAZOKU: ANIKI NO OYOME SAN
>(Cat III, adult film). Is this the famous porno parody of Ozu? 

Yes it is, but I don't know why it is so successful in HK. Suo's
popularity is definitely one reason for this success. Anotherone could
be that HK has always been showing some Japanese pink eiga. I was once
told from a pink eiga producer that HK was the only regular
export-market for pink eiga, although only of marginal importance to the
industry.  

I'd be grateful for comments or informations on how other Asian
countries cope with the problem of depicting sexuality in cinema. 

Roland Domenig
==========
Institute for Japanese Studies 
University of Vienna
Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 2
1090 Wien, Austria
Tel> +43-1-4277-43817
Fax> +43-1-4277-9438
e-mail> roland.domenig at univie.ac.at




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