Female Cats (film)

Female Cats

Theatrical poster for Female Cats (1983)
Directed by Shingo Yamashiro[1]
Produced by Yutaka Okada
Kimio Shindō
Written by Makoto Naitō
Kochiho Katsura
Starring Ai Saotome
Music by Tarō Morimoto
Cinematography Yonezō Maeda
Edited by Akira Suzuki
Distributed by Nikkatsu
Release dates
 December 23, 1983
Running time
 86 minutes
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Female Cats (女猫 Meneko) is a 1983 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Shingo Yamashiro and starring Ai Saotome.

Synopsis

Innocent female doctor Mineko was seduced by Sachiko, an aggressive lesbian, in her younger days. Mineko begins dating a male coworker, and accepts an invitation to a party at the home of a transvestite patient. Sachiko comes out of Mineko's past, enraged with jealousy, and begins tormenting Mineko and her boyfriend.[2][3]

Cast

Critical appraisal

Female Cats director Shingo Yamashiro was best known as an actor, having debuted in 1957.[5] He appeared in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, and one of his better-known appearance for Western audiences is in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Sweet Home (1989).[5][6]

In his Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, Jasper Sharp uses Female Cats as an example of the range of themes possible in the Roman Porno genre, calling it an Argento-esque thriller.[3] In their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, the Weissers compliment Yamashiro's direction as the best thing about the film. They write that he, "goes the extra mile to compose many astonishingly good-looking sequences, punctuated by some creatively stylish camerawork."[2] A lesbian shower sequence between Mineko and Sachiko is singled out for praise. The scene is shot from the shower faucet's point of view, through a spray of water.[2] However they fault the film's unimaginative script and its "lurid plot".[2]

Availability

Female Cats was released theatrically in Japan on December 23, 1983.[7] It was released to home video in VHS format in Japan on March 16, 1984, and re-issued on June 22, 1990. It was released as part of the Nikkatsu Roman Porno Series of VHS releases on December 6, 1991.[8][9][10] It was released on DVD in Japan on December 4, 1998, and re-released on DVD on June 23, 2006, as part of Geneon's fourth wave of Nikkatsu Roman porno series.[11][12] In this format it was issued in the 4-disc Roman Porno series DVD Box, Vol. 1 on March 7, 2008.[13] It is currently scheduled to be released in the USA on DVD May 7, 2013, under the title 'She Cat'.

Bibliography

English

Japanese

Notes

  1. ↑ 女猫(1983) (in Japanese). www.allcinema.net. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Weisser, p. 140.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sharp, Jasper (2008). Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. Guildford: FAB Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-903254-54-7.
  4. ↑ 女猫(1983)(邦画) (in Japanese). Kinema Junpo. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Film, TV actor Yamashiro dies at 70". Kyodo News (Japan Times). 2009-08-15. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  6. ↑ Weisser, p. 180.
  7. ↑ "女猫". Japanese Cinema Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  8. ↑ "女猫 (VHS)" (in Japanese). Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  9. ↑ "女猫 (VHS)" (in Japanese). Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  10. ↑ "女猫 早乙女愛 日活名作映画館ロマンシリーズ (VHS)" (in Japanese). Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  11. ↑ "女猫 (DVD)" (in Japanese). Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  12. ↑ ジェネオン エンタテインメントよりＤＶＤリリース (in Japanese). P.G. Web Site. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  13. ↑ "日活名作ロマンシリーズDVD-BOX 女優選集 Vol.1" (in Japanese). Amazon.com. Retrieved 2009-09-17.