is a 1969

1969 in film

The year 1969 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Last year for prize giving at the Venice Film Festival until it is revived in 1980...

 Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese pink film directed by Kan Mukai

Kan Mukai

aka Hiroshi Mukai and was a Japanese film director, cinematographer, producer and screenwriter, known for his pioneering work in the pink film genre...

.

Synopsis

As his investments in the stock market fail, a man finds himself in serious debt to a lecherous loan-shark named Uchiyama. The man's wife hires herself to Uchiyama to buy time for the husband to pay off the debt. After Uchiyama uses the wife to provide companionship for his mentally-impaired son, she is hit by a car, and her husband falls into despair and illness. Their daughter works as a nightclub dancer, intending to save the money to help with the debt. After her father's suicide, the girl decides to get revenge.

Cast

• Mitsugu Fujii
• Ichirō Furuoka
• Miki Hashimoto
• Keisuke Kawahigashi
• Rika Koyanagi
• Reo Mizumori
• Kumi Ōsugi
• Shūsuke Sone
• Takako Uchida

Background

Because 3.5 million yen was the budget imposed on works in the pink film genre, an all-color production had been beyond the means of directors in the 1960s. Some films had been shot partially in color, using color only for certain scenes, a practise that would continue until Nikkatsu

Nikkatsu

is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...

 took over the genre with its Roman porno series in 1971. Blue Film Woman was one of the first all-color pink films. Jasper Sharp writes that director Mukai's use of color in this film appears to be "making up for lost time, exploding into its super-saturated hues from the very first frame... flooded with prismatic blotches of primary reds and blues and silhouettes of naked female bodies - not unlike a more lysergically-inspired version of a Bond movie credit sequence." The style continues, Sharp writing that the film as a whole is a "highly stylised piece."

Availability and critical reception

Blue Film Woman is one of the only pink films from its era to survive in a 35mm format. It made its U.S. debut in September 2008, with a new print screened at the Fantastic Fest

Fantastic Fest

Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of The Iron Giant and Secondhand Lions. The festival focuses on genre films such as horror,...

 in Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

. After the viewing, twitchfilm.net judged that it is, "a great example of early pinku eiga that deserves to be seen." Its Canadian debut was at the FanTasia International Film Festival. It was shown at the fiftieth International Thessaloniki Film Festival.