Rope and Breasts

Rope and Breasts

Theatrical poster for Rope and Breasts (1983)
Directed by Masaru Konuma[1]
Produced by Yoshiyuki Unno
Written by Eizō Uji
Starring Nami Matsukawa
Music by Hachirō Kai
Cinematography Teio Noda
Edited by Shinji Yamada
Distributed by Nikkatsu
Release dates
 January 7, 1983
Running time
 69 min.
Country Japan
Language Japanese

Rope and Breasts (縄と乳房 Nawa to chibusa) is a 1983 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Masaru Konuma and starring Nami Matsukawa.[2]

Synopsis

Sayo is running a travelling SM show with her husband, where she plays the bottom, and gets increasingly bored with her life. During their tour in Kyoto, they are arranged by a well-off couple who ask for a private show, without knowing that they will eventually be forced for the "real thing".[3]

Cast

Nami Matsukawa

By 1980, Nami Matsukawa (松川 ナミ) was a sex worker named "Emi" at the SM club Blue Chateau in Akasaka, Tokyo.[4] She made her first onscreen appearances as a bondage model for nawashi Hiroshi Urado and Nikkatsu later promoted Matsukawa as the fourth "SM Queen" (SMの女王 SM no joō) following Naomi Tani, Junko Mabuki, and Izumi Shima. Her girl-next door quality made her popular with audiences, but SM-author Oniroku Dan complained that, unlike the buxom Naomi Tani, Matsukawa was not fleshy enough to be an appealing bondage subject in his films.[5] Rope and Breasts was Matsukawa's farewell appearance as the Nikkatsu SM Queen[6] and she was replaced by Miki Takakura after a brief "reign".[7]

Critical appraisal

In their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, the Weissers write that with Rope and Breasts, director Konuma has taken the S&M theme—which he pioneered in Nikkatsu's with Afternoon Affair: Kyoto Holy Tapestry (1973)-- to the level of exploitation. In this film, they judge, nudity, bondage, and torture have taken place of a story. Rather than the interesting plotting found in some of Konuma's previous works, the film is a series of set-pieces. "The most salacious finds beautiful Nami Matsukawa floating in a large goldfish bowl as she empties her bowels for the leering crowd of old geezers."[8]

As Jasper Sharp describes this scene, Matsukawa is given an enema, and then forced into the fishbowl. "She quivers for several moments as she is forced to hold it in, before violently releasing the viscous fluid into the waters, as the spectators stare on mesmerised in a mixture of curiosity and awe, like kids at a birthday party watching a clown conjuring up balloon animals." Sharp uses this scene to illustrate the nature of the softcore genre in Japan. Because of the censorship, we cannot be sure into which orifice the enema is inserted. "Though perverse," he writes, "this scene is not particularly explicit."[9]

Availability

Rope and Breasts was released on DVD in Japan on February 23, 2006, as part of Geneon's fourth wave of Nikkatsu Roman porno series.[10]

Bibliography

English

Japanese

Notes

  1. ↑ Infobox data from 縄と乳房(1983) (in Japanese). www.allcinema.net. Retrieved 2009-08-08. and 縄と乳房 (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
  2. ↑ Sharp, Jasper (2008). Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. Guildford: FAB Press. p. 349. ISBN 978-1-903254-54-7.
  3. ↑ "縄と乳房 (Cast and synopsis)" (in Japanese). www.shinnihoneizo.co.jp (XCes). Retrieved 2009-08-08.
  4. ↑ 松川ナミ - SMpedia
  5. ↑ Weisser, pp. 340, 394.
  6. ↑ Weisser, p. 396.
  7. ↑ Dan Oniroku Bijo Nawagesho at New York Times Movie Review
  8. ↑ Weisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). "ROPE AND BREASTS (1983)". Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books : Asian Cult Cinema Publications. p. 352. ISBN 1-889288-52-7.
  9. ↑ Sharp, p. 27.
  10. ↑ 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 2009-08-08.