is a

1983 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese film in

Nikkatsu is a Japanese film studio located in Bunkyō. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures". Shareholders are Nippon Television Holdings (35%) and SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (28.4%). ...

's ''

Roman porno refers in Japan to movies produced by independent studios that includes nudity (hence 'pink') or deals with sexual content. This encompasses everything from dramas to action thrillers and exploitation film features. Many pink films would be an ...

'' series, directed by

Masaru Konuma was a Japanese film director known for his '' Roman Porno'' films for Nikkatsu during the 1970s. Life and career Early life Masaru Konuma was born in Otaru, Hokkaidō, on December 30, 1937. Konuma retained no memories of his father who was a t ...

and starring

Nami Matsukawa is a Japanese 1980s pink film actress and bondage and fetish model who is best known for being the 4th Nikkatsu SM Queen in 1983. Career By 1980, Nami Matsukawa was a sex worker named "Emi" at the SM club ''Blue Chateau'' in Akasaka, Tokyo. Mat ...

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 Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

, 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".

Cast

* Nami Matsukawa: Sayo Mayuzumi * Ryōsei Tayama: Isao, Sayo's husband * Kazuyuki Senba: Kenzo Kawamura *

Izumi Shima is a Japanese mainstream film actress who is best known for her roles in Nikkatsu's Roman Porno film series. Life and career Shima was born Keiko Ishida () in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Japan on December 3, 1953. Ishida made her acting deb ...

: Taeko, Kawamura's wife * Akira Takahashi: Strip club owner * Izumi Sagawa: Girl at

Kiyomizu-dera is a Buddhist temple located in eastern Kyoto, Japan. The temple is part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto UNESCO World Heritage Site. History The temple was established in 778, during the late Nara period, by Enchin Shonin, who ...

* Yōichi Takabayashi: Man in kimono (with the girl) * Saburō Shōji: Kawamura's contact

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." 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."

Availability

''Rope and Breasts'' was released on DVD in Japan on February 23, 2006, as part of

Geneon (abbreviated as NBCUEJ) is a Japanese music, anime, and home entertainment production and distribution enterprise that is a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, owned by American telecommunications/media company Comcast headquartered in Akasaka, Tokyo ...

's fourth wave of Nikkatsu ''Roman porno'' series.

Bibliography

English

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Japanese

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Notes

{{Masaru Konuma 1983 films Films directed by Masaru Konuma 1980s Japanese-language films Nikkatsu films Nikkatsu Roman Porno 1980s Japanese films