Monday, April 2, 2012

DEBAUCHERY DVD Review



Japan/1983
Directed By: Hidehiro Ito
Written By: Hidehiro Ito
Starring: Ryoko Watanabe, Serina Nishikawa, Mizuho Nakagawa
Color/70 Minutes/Not Rated

The Film

The Pink film is a style of Japanese sexploitation porn made famous during it's rise to prominence from the 1960s-80s. During the early 70s the bigger studios in Japan took note of the popularity of these films and jumped aboard to make their own with bigger budgets and stars. Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest film studio, launched the Roman Porno series in 1971. Nikkatsu gave their directors plenty of artistic freedom in creating these sex flicks and there was no shortage of heart and soul to go along with tits and ass. By the time DEBAUCHERY came around in 1983 much of that artistic flair had dried up and turned in to well, debauchery. The 80s seemed to do that, much like artistic value was thrown away for gore and excess in horror films of the decade, the same can be said for the Pink films.

Ami is a bored housewife who learns of a secret brothel for only wealthy customers that has worked wonders for the sex life and marriage of it's employees. Anything goes in this place and what better way to spice up a boring marriage than learning new tricks and games while making some money. Ami quickly learns that she didn't bargain for the sick and perverse fetishes of the men buying her body.



That is about as far as the plot of the film goes and clocking in at a swift 70 minutes that leaves plenty of time for all sorts of nasty sexual depravity. Anal beads, whips, gang rape. The film absolutely lives up to it's title and the only thing missing is showing the explicit "in out in out" as our friend Alex DeLarge would say. To cover that, and more so to imply that there is actual sex happening on screen an optical fog is used which is a blatant reminder on how the Japanese feel about showing the nether regions on film. That doesn't take away from the wild side of this film though, after all what would your mother think about this stuff?



The Picture
DEBAUCHERY is lovingly released by the Impulse Pictures line from Synapse Films in an anamorphic widescreen presentation with the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in tact. The film looks nice, with flesh tones looking perfect and the reds of the beautifully created "fun time room" popping. The direction here is rather bland but there are some nice sets and shots and this DVD capitalizes on them. This is a great looking release.



The Audio
We are graced with a Japanese 2.0 Mono track with removable English subtitles which have been newly translated. The audio track is clean and free of any hiccups or distortions and the subtitles are timed nice and read naturally. Another high mark for this disc.

The Extras
-Original Theatrical Trailer

-Liner Notes from Japanese film scholar Jasper Sharp

The Bottom Line
Impulse Pictures has released some classic sexploitation in the past several years but they're not happy resting on their laurels. This release of DEBAUCHERY shows they're ready to bring these cult films to the masses and do it with pride. The liner notes are a great Cliff's Notes into the world of the Pink film for any novice on the genre and even the experienced fan can learn something here. They're a great accompaniment to an overall fine release.

DEBAUCHERY is available to order here

Disc Overview
Film - 7/10
Picture - 8/10
Audio - 8/10
Extras - 6/10

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