{"id":10622,"date":"2015-02-11T23:51:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T04:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10622"},"modified":"2015-02-11T23:52:52","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T04:52:52","slug":"dvd-she-cat-female-cat-meneko-1983","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10622","title":{"rendered":"DVD: She Cat \/ Female Cat \/ Meneko (1983)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"SheCat1983\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Standard<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Impulse Pictures \/ Synapse Films<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0May 7, 2013<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Japanese Pink \/ Adult<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A sudden murder and a mysterious woman with a bag pulls a gynecologist into a dark world of secrets, lies, and mean gangsters.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 4-page colour booklet with liner notes by Jasper Sharp \/ Theatrical Trailer.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Sometimes as lovely as chipmunk, sometimes as fierce as cougar… A beauty called Cat… You must have a sexy woman while hot!”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Jasper Sharp writes in the DVD\u2019s liner notes, as long as some sexual action occurred roughly (and sometimes, quite literally,\u00a0roughly) every 10 mins., filmmakers were pretty much left on their own to make their little weird Roman Porno films for studio Nikkatsu, but the question that perhaps even studio brass contemplated near the end of the series\u2019 line was whether a Roman Porno film could succeed as a full-length feature-length film.<\/p>\n

Would it actually work?<\/p>\n

Most\u00a0Roman Porno\u00a0films run about 63 mins., and with rare exceptions \u2013\u00a0Office Love: Behind Closed Doors<\/a>\u00a0<\/b>(1985) clocks in at 71 mins. \u2013 anything more seems, well\u00a0epic<\/i>, and that\u2019s certainly the expectation of\u00a0She Cat<\/b>, which pushed the running time to an unheard-of 87 mins. Naturally, the expectations for genre fans will run high since many\u00a0Roman Porno\u00a0entries could\u2019ve benefitted from a longer running time to expand on the genuine efforts by screenwriters and directors to flesh out (so to speak) characters with back(side)stories.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not unusual to get a sense that filmmakers and writers tried to use Nikkatsu’s adult format to prove they could in fact handle the demands of a dramatic narrative. In some cases, if the sex scenes where whittled down to mere titillation (and maybe if the mandatory assault scenes could be reduced to inaugural sounds heard by audiences from far off), what emerges may be just a weird,\u00a0marginally\u00a0<\/i>wrong drama with odd fetishistic elements.<\/p>\n

She Cat\u00a0<\/b>could\u2019ve and should\u2019ve benefited from the generous running time with deeper certain characters, so it\u2019s a little shocking to see that in this rare feature length effort the end result is, well, meh. Neither bad nor excellent, Shingo Yamashiro\u2019s directorial debut is a little schizophrenic, with a script (co-written by\u00a0House<\/b>\u2019s Chiho Katsura) that has fleeting moments of decent dialogue but often clunky character motivations, and awfully dated humour.<\/p>\n

Yamashiro\u2019s career actually evolved from acting in period action dramas to gangster films, but the amalgam of buffoonery, mystery, gangsterism, malpractice, abortion and rape (in that order), wacky gay characters, sweet romance, revenge, and tragedy in She Cat\u00a0<\/strong>is quite a stew.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell: Gynecologists Mineko\u00a0(Ai Saotome, making her lone\u00a0Roman Porno\u00a0entry), nicknamed \u201cCat\u201d, and a colleague with whom she\u2019s romantically involved (Sachiko Ito) attempt to find a\u00a0mysterious patient whose appearance at a gay wedding may have resulted in a terrible case of mistaken identity + the murder of the bride. Hot on their tails are three gangsters sent by the owner of their clinic, which also doubles as a women\u2019s shelter.<\/p>\n

Ai eventually finds refuge with a dude named Shirley (actor \/ racing car driver Koichi Iwaki), and an innocent romance blossoms, while Ai\u2019s lesbian lover soon double-crosses her when the clinic\u2019s owner threatens to expose her shady past.<\/p>\n

Also involved in this potboiler is the mysterious woman, Eiko (Yoshie Ohtsuka), a forensic facial reconstruction technician (!) who used her skills to rebuild the face of her murdered sister using the skull found on a beach. Seems years before, the sister (Yoshie Otsuka), in an act of jealousy (?) had tried to kill Ai because she was involved with clinic\u2019s son, a twerp now set to marry an airhead whose father owns a medical conglomerate. Now Eiko also wants an abortion, because she\u2019s carrying the child of the groom.<\/p>\n

Got all that?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an unusually elaborate story that sometimes works, but by attempting to focus on intricate plotting, the characters get lost, and the film\u2019s tempo often stops cold because of the sex scenes, or meanders due to generic chases. The integration of flashbacks of Ai with prior lovers and being shunned by the son feel disjointed, and several generic connective scenes suffer from lethargic pacing when not draped with Taro Morimoto\u2019s dated and quite awful bubble-headed score.<\/p>\n

Yamashiro\u2019s direction is fine – apparently he\u2019d also appeared in a few Roman Porno entries, so he knew the formula quite well \u2013 but the real draw is Yonezo Maeda\u2019s cinematography, boasting beautiful compositions, fluid camera movements, kinetic handheld footage in a street chase, and some really lovely lighting. (The shootout in a ruined warehouse is especially well done.)<\/p>\n

The gangster elements never transcend their cartoonish origins, except in a patently revolting assault scene where Eiko and the clinic\u2019s receptionist (Kotomi Aoki) are brutalized by the goons. Yamashiro went for realism, and its wrong tone is contrasted by intercutting scenes from the genuinely tender courting between Shirley and Ai that just manages to avoid being cloying because of Iwaki\u2019s natural performance. Unlike Ai\u2019s prior hardcore unions, her tussle with Shirley is staged like erotic portraiture, which is either Yamashiro\u2019s attempt to stay true to the couple\u2019s pure attraction, or actor Iwaki not wanting to engage on camera in overtly softcore scenes.<\/p>\n

Impulse Picture\u2019s transfer is sourced from a very nice print with clean sound, and the trailer is filled with plenty of teaser lines that are probably just as ridiculous in Japanese (see top of review). The trailer is a curious promo piece that moves from staged behind-the-scenes footage of Saotome and director Yamashiro on a camera crane to straight montages. (Incidentally, it’s easy to recognize Yamashiro, because his visage is briefly visible on the chrome plating in a scene at the clinic!)<\/p>\n

Yamashiro directed just three films \u2013\u00a0She Cat<\/b>\u00a0\/\u00a0Meneko<\/b>\u00a0(1983),\u00a0Futago-za no onna<\/b>\u00a0(1984), and\u00a0The School<\/b>\u00a0\/\u00a0Sensei<\/b>\u00a0(1989) \u2013 whereas co-writer Chiho Katsura wrote other wrong Roman Porno entries,\u00a0Zoom Up: Rape Site<\/b>\u00a0(1979), and the revenge \/ micturating tale\u00a0Zoom Up: The Beaver Book Girl<\/a><\/b>\u00a0(1981).<\/p>\n

Cinematographer Yonezo Maeda eventually graduated to mainstream [non-smut] films, lensing Juzo Itami\u2019s\u00a0The Funeral\u00a0<\/b>\/\u00a0Os\u00f4shiki\u00a0<\/b>(1984) and\u00a0A Taxing Woman\u2019s Return<\/b>\u00a0\/\u00a0Marusa no onna 2\u00a0<\/b>(1988).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Jasper Sharp writes in the DVD\u2019s liner notes, as long as some sexual action occurred roughly (and sometimes, quite literally, roughly) every 10 mins., filmmakers were pretty much left on their own to make their little weird Roman Porno films for studio Nikkatsu, but the question that perhaps even studio brass contemplated near the end of the series\u2019 line was whether a RP film could succeed as a full-length feature-length film…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3354,1488,3355,1492,1506,3353,3356,3357],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2Lk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10622"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10711,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10622\/revisions\/10711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}