1979 ‘赫い髪の女’ Directed by Tatsumi Kumashiro
Junko Miyashita plays a mysterious hitchhiker picked up by a brute of a construction worker named Kenzo who takes her back to his run-down and cramped apartment in a not so good part of town. Claiming that she is running away from an abusive husband, she shacks up with him. In a futile attempt to escape the bleak working class surroundings, the pair engage in an obsessive erotic relationship.
La femme aux cheveux rouges, Akai kami no onna, 빨간 머리의 여자, La Femme aux cheveux rouges, A Woman with Red Hair, 红发女郎, 빨간 머리 여자
Japan
Japan
Really dull and honestly quite offensive as it plays into some of the worst male defense stereotypes when it comes to rape.
Was really disappointed as I'm not really into pinku (however it seems I'll be watching another this weekend), so I was surprised how mundane, offensive and cinematically flat this is.
Shame as I would really recommend The Inferno and Mister, Missus, Miss Lonely by Tatsumi Kumashiro, as they are both excellent.
I’m glad they didn’t discover therapy! This a working class Sada Abe. Modern. A shitty apartment above drug addicts. One partner must still work and venture outside. The other waits, crazed in the daze of his smells. Junko Miyashita might not be the erotic Goddess of Nikkatsu like Naomi Tani, but she’s probably their greatest actress and revels in her roles. Jessica Chastain could never!
Whereas the beginning is a little middling, it quickly builds and contrasts two couples. The main couple is so beautifully toxic towards one another. So horny. So clingy. She forsakes her past life, marriage, and two children. She hitchhikes until they meet and quickly lives with him. And it doesn’t end violently! Nikkatsu: A Love Story. A tale…
You can smell the sweat in that room. You can feel the dirt on the soles of your feet and the taste of semen on the back of your throat as the couple proceeds to mate again. A concoction of, mostly negative, inherently intense aspects of the human psyche (anger, despair, contempt, infatuation, loathe) pushed to the extreme. Truly a suffocating experience.
And this can't be understated; Junko Miyashita in the skin of the red-haired woman is a powerhouse. Immediately iconic, uninhibitedly primitive and charismatic. One of those rare complex performances that's above its material.
contained spaces that double as entrapments of carnal dependencies and abuse. I usually like when Kumashiro operates in contained setting finding ways to transpose turmoil of the outer world onto the erotic interactions. although this is an exception in that, it remains effective with the grim atmosphere; setting the said space and its vile concupiscence against the sea, both clashing to swallow the other.
There are no western movies like this, it just doesn't happen. This is a sex drama, an adult tale about sex, violence, terrible behavior and love. Explicit in story if not very visually explicit on screen. It starts like many rape-y Japanese porn movies but then quickly becomes a character study about two 'couples?' stuck inside, not able to work because of incessant rain. The sex isn't really erotic and the men do really terrible things to the women but it totally held my interest. Very well acted, written and shot. I loved the little song about how funny penises are, plus its not 2 and a half hours long, like a lot of art films. Certainly not for everybody but i liked it.
Red — as in hair, blood and lingerie — amidst a sea of rain. Pink film with mainstream crossover appeal and a fantastic Junko Miyashita performance. Just as visually enthralling as Kumashiro's masterpiece Woods are Wet (1973) without purporting to be a circus horror film. Actually, the only horror here (aside from obligatory genre trappings) comes from a junky neighbor downstairs. Sensual and atmospheric. Vile poetry.
This film simply wouldn't exists without the one of a kind, special performance by Junko Miyashita: she is a great actress, capable of continuosly passing from an infectious laugh to an heartbreaking cry withing a fraction of seconds...she is the japanese adult cinema Gena Rowlands, really!
This couple is toxic and messy, which makes me want to shower. Good job Nikkatsu and Tatsumi Kumashiro.
Junko Miyashita bares it all. She is a woman who is leaving one life to begin another one with someone worse than the husband she left. I say that because Renji Ishibashi‘s Kozo is a boozy, construction worker who is scummy.
He and his friend from work try to rape the boss’ daughter only for the friend to do it and she gets pregnant. They drive around, touching each other’s dick thinking about women, and find the woman with the red hair.
Kozo and the woman begin an intense sexual relationship that feels like they are destined to die together while fucking…
Endlessly baffled, but pleasantly so, by the selection of weirdo arthouse films available on Stan? Junko Miyashita is incredible as the titular woman with red hair, a movie that I will probably never watch again!
Typical of Nikkatsu in that era, Akai kami no onna is incredibly horny and troubled, though unfortunately not in a way that worked for me in this instance. Everyone’s awful, zero comeuppance - which is fine, but it makes it difficult to invest when you want oldgirl to burn the flat down.
Lots of trigger warnings, viewer discretion advised, etc.
Edit: wow, Letterboxd’s synopsis just does not hold back, huh?
I was wondering where this was going most of the way through, but boy did it creep up. Maybe out of exhaustion with it. Maybe that’s the intention. Sex as sanctuary, as a way to dull the outside world, others and memory; as evasion of the self and each other. Ugly, elemental, nauseating sex in clutter and filth. A fear of what’s on the other side of it should they stop. Um. Kinda great. eep.
