Pink 50th Birthday and Re: Top 32 Nikkatsu Roman Porno

[Jasper Sharp]

I'm not entirely sure whether Shintoho has officially ceased production after almost 50 years, but it certainly seems that way, which is a real shame.You're right, Okura probably will be the last studio standing in Japan, although I understand they had substantial assets in the real estate business, so managed to bring in a regular income from outside of the world of film (not unusual for a Japanese film company). Any idea what is happening with ENK?
Anyway, I believe that Pink Eiga has switched to releasing Okura's films now, with a pile of titles planned for this summer. They facilitated my screenings of Yumi Yoshiyuki's films last summer in Poland and Estonia, and mentioned it then.
I do agree with you about the marketing and subtitling issues of Pink Eiga, particularly in changing titles to new ones, in the case of films like WHORE ANGELS. As you say, they are most certainly not appealing to a cinephile audience. Then again, if my experiences programming or talking to DVD distributors has taught me nothing else, cinephiles are the last people to actually pay to see anything! Certainly Mondo Macabro gave up on packaging Roman Porno films are artful eroticism, because Nikkatsu's asking prices were so high and the audience for this sort of thing on DVD generally couldn't tell the difference between an established classic of Japanese eroticism, or an opportunistically packaged straight-to-video cheapy. Its a crying shame, because I think Pete Tombs from Mondo Macabro as the one of the best eyes I can think of for putting out otherwise undiscovered gems from any part of the world. The Chusei Sone film NAKED RASHOMON which his company released in 2008 was one of the most interesting and finally crafted Roman Porno's I can think of, but I heard it sold negligible amounts. Ah well, at least Synapse are continuing along this path.... 



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> Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:26:47 -0400
> From: maiku at umich.edu
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Re: Pink 50th Birthday and  Re: Top 32 Nikkatsu Roman Porno
> 
> Jasper, thanks for the details. Sounds like a memorable screening.
> 
> Has Shintoho stopped producing entirely? Last I heard, they were trying 
> to concentrate on these video-shot 'taisaku' productions. They're still 
> sending their old prints out to theaters but they haven't released 
> anything new since October. It is starting to look like Okura will be 
> the last pink studio standing in Japan.
> 
>  > Okura is now the main player, and the US company Pink Eiga
> > have now moved to distributing this companies work overseas.
> 
> I believe Pink Eiga has mostly released Shintoho titles so far, but 
> there are a few OP films in the catalog. It's nice to see some fairly 
> run-of-the-mill pink titles get distribution on DVD in the U.S., but the 
> company is definitely not aiming for the cinephile demographic with 
> tweets and ads like this:
> 
> "I want to have a hot Japanese chick as a slave, naming her HUMAN 
> LIVESTOCK! I am such a horny, dirty man! http://dai.ly/vRPuLX"
> 
> or this:
> "What we want to do on Thanksgiving day is eating Turkey, watching Pink 
> Eiga (and hopefully, fucking Japanese Chck!) http://bit.ly/vFNvFD"
> 
> Unfortunately the subtitle translation suffers from a similar focus on 
> kink and Japanese female T&A above all else. In the discs I've seen, the 
> subs exaggerate the "dirty" talk while streamlining the story, and the 
> result isn't particularly accurate. The company also censored a 
> male-male scene out of one of their videos because, apparently, the 
> American audience doesn't tolerate that sort of thing.
> 
> I spoke to an active Pink director in Tokyo last summer who was also 
> frustrated at the way Pink Eiga was mistranslating or misrepresenting 
> the films.
> 
> I'm looking forward to the Synapse Roman Porno discs.
> 
> Michael Arnold
 		 	   		  
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