{"id":5393,"date":"2012-08-09T14:22:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T18:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5393"},"modified":"2012-08-21T12:40:57","modified_gmt":"2012-08-21T16:40:57","slug":"dvd-zoom-in-sex-apartments-zumu-in-boko-danchi-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5393","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Zoom In: Sex Apartments \/ Z\u00fbmu in: B\u00f4k\u00f4 danchi (1980)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>V to Z<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent \/ DVD Extras: Standard<\/p>\n

Label: Impulse Pictures \/ Synapse\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: July 10, 2012<\/p>\n

Genre: Japanese Pink \/ Adult<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A serial rapist & killer traumatizes the pretty inhabitants of a new residential apartment complex using politically incorrect procedures.<\/p>\n

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

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Review:<\/p>\n

The fifth volume in Impulse Picture\u2019s Nikkatsu Roman Porno series is this nasty little shocker written by Chicho Katsura (Zoom Up: The Beaver Book Girl<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>]) in which a black gloved serial rapist & killer assaults women and literally sets their privates aflame, committing a mangled collage of atrocities in daylight & nighttime, initially with total impunity.<\/p>\n

The strangeness of this particular entry in pink cinema lies in the skillful way first-time director Naosuke Kurosawa makes use of the almost decaying environment of a partially built apartment complex, and his use of elegant widescreen composition and saturated colours. It\u2019s not extreme to suggest Kurosawa was making his own giallo hybrid \u2013 at least in the use of streamlined visuals which don\u2019t date the film\u2019s look, and whole sequences devoted to sexual mayhem.<\/p>\n

Shocks and revelations burst like an Italian giallo, yet the film also combines extended softcore scenes as well as graphic rape which isn\u2019t germane to standard thrillers, let alone the giallo. (There are full-blown exceptions within the giallo genre, but graphic sex scenes rarely go on for long stretches because the goal of a giallo is to keep the pace moving, and sex is merely the cheap teaser to the longer stalk and slash audio-visual mobile.)<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s most bizarre sequence, however, is rooted in the giallo: the ludicrous eye puncture of a schoolgirl by running into a barbed wire, and the fast-editing of the victim\u2019s full debasement by displaying feminine attributes across the screen before mangling them due to a sadistic undercurrent rooted in the killer\u2019s warped psychology. Kurosawa goes way<\/em> further by having his killer set victim on fire, which in this case consists of stuffing a gas-soaked wad in her privates. It\u2019s a repulsive scene steeped in feral misogyny… and yet in its own warped way, like Takashi Miike\u2019s extended sexual torture scenes (notably Imprint<\/strong>, his revolting episode of the Masters of Horrors<\/strong> series) Kuroswa is making his own kind of sexual splatter art.<\/p>\n

If the kills aren\u2019t blatant and kinetic, they\u2019re sometimes abstract, like a girl found cut and twisted within the metal tubing of an unfinished support column \u2013 an image that perhaps to western eyes, evokes a twisted figure ensnared within intricate playground monkey bars. That scene is later tied to a Sadean moment in which the dead girl\u2019s father walks past the apartment banging a drum, mourning his loss while another woman is not only raped and killed, but has her privates blow-torched in a scene presaging the tool\u2019s ugly usage in The Girl Net Door<\/a><\/strong> (2007).<\/p>\n

Zoom Up: Sex Apartments<\/strong> is completely absurd \u2013 the violence and logic behind the assaults and killings is as rational as a giallo\u2019s narrative underpinnings, and the nutbar finale where \u2018all is explained\u2019 in operatic excess \u2013 but it\u2019s a somewhat successful creation, perhaps because Kurasawa is able to balance melodrama, sexual violence, and straightforward softcore copulation. There\u2019s also the peculiar inference that the heroine, after surviving deceit and violence in the opening construction site \/ dusty wasteland assault, has been irreparably transformed into a soul sympathetic to her aggressor, as well hungry to relive the extreme events, much in the way newlywed Amparo felt quite bereft once she was back at home with her dull husband at the end of Erotic Escape<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1985).<\/p>\n

Impulse\u2019s transfer is gorgeous, capturing Masaru Mori\u2019s superb cinematography and the compositions.\u00a0 Jasper Sharp\u2019s liner notes place the film within the context of its strange genre, and he makes note of Kurosawa\u2019s own career for Nikkatsu, starting as an assistant director on pink films like Masaru Konuma\u2019s explosive \u2018bondage & bowel voiding\u2019 drama Wife to be Sacrificed <\/strong> \/ Ikenie fujin <\/strong>(1974), as well as the film\u2019s sort-of antecedent, Zoom Up: Rape Site <\/strong>\/ Z\u00fbmu appu: b\u00f4k\u00f4 genba<\/strong> (1979), or Zoom Up: Rape Report<\/strong> \/ Z\u00fbmu appu: b\u00f4k\u00f4 hakusho<\/strong> (1981).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0V to Z<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ V to Z . Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent \/ DVD Extras: Standard Label: Impulse Pictures \/ Synapse\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: July 10, 2012 Genre: Japanese Pink \/ Adult Synopsis: A serial rapist & killer traumatizes the pretty inhabitants of a new residential apartment complex […]<\/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":[1487,1488,1486,1506],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1oZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393"}],"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=5393"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5455,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions\/5455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}