Castle Orgies (1971)
Hayashi Isao
Japan
69 mins, color, Japanese (English subtitles)
When the shogun picks Yae (Setsuko Ogawa) for a concubine, she must enter the castle and wait for Master to call on her. Unfortunately, she's in love with some low-rank samurai, Shinnosuke, and the star-struck lovers strike out. One night, Yae is picked as a bed-maid, which basically means listening to Master getting it on with some woman. She ends up fantasizing about sex in pink (how original) and goes in for some hot lesbo action with her supervisor. If you ever wondered what these girls did in the harems, now you know. Anyway, it's not just girl-on-girl, but also girl-on-priest when the bevy of concubines goes to pray. I converted to Buddhism immediately after this film. At the temple, Yae loses her virginity to Shinnosuke, who has discovered that nubile flesh is not the only thing that can divert the monks from the sutras (he has also discovered the pleasures of rented love). Yae's secret is discovered, she is kicked out, but manages to elope with her young lover. Straight out of Shakespeare.
I am not known to object to rampant nudity, and I am not about to ruin that reputation. However, there are several huge problems with this little pink outing. First, why do women never seem to enjoy sex? For some bizarre reason, this seems a common trait for Japanese films. It's just unsettling to watch some withered dude grope a beautiful girl while she's not having fun. Oh, wait. I think I just answered my own question. Second, there're just too many soft-core scenes that are totally devoid of eroticism (i.e. all of them). Half way through the film I found myself wishing that the girls kept their gorgeous kimonos on for a little longer. Third, what's with the ugly and/or fat chicks anyway?
Of course, I could talk about the film as a commentary about the subjection of women, but that would defeat the purpose of the filmmaker, whose sole intention was to appeal to the base tastes that each and every one of us has. If you don't, you are weird.
As far as Japanese pink movies go, CASTLE ORGIES is pretty tame. There's a castle (sort of) but I definitely did not see any orgies. In fact, I only saw wholesome one-on-ones, and nothing more, if we don't count the group bath scene, where most girls found ingenious ways to cover up and save the filmmakers money on fogging the offending areas optically. If one is a nut about period films, then one might conceivably watch this for the costumes. The ladies, some of whom were quite attractive, sported ahistorical tan lines, so this may spoil the authenticity a bit. As if...
To top it off, the film is letterboxed. For serious art-pink fans only.
May 20, 2001. BLS