SEX HUNTER: WET TARGET (1972)
Label: Impulse PicturesRegion: 1 NTSC
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 69 minutes
Audio: Dolby Digital Japanese 2.0 Mono
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (2:35:1)
Director: Yukihiro Sawada
Cast: Aoyama Miyoko, George Harrison, Isayama Hiroko
Cast: Aoyama Miyoko, George Harrison, Isayama Hiroko
My wife loves to says that the erotic and exploitation cinema sent to the Mausoleum corrupts me in some weird way and will not suffer it being watched in the house. What can I say, I'm totally whipped guys but I love her a bunch and she asks so very little of me why not just humor that one request. I usually tuck away the naughty stuff for a rainy day when I'm home alone - which seems to be never - and watch one when I can without fear of upsetting my better half. As it happens I'm out of town on an extended business trip and brought with me a year's worth of naughty cinema so consider this review an early start on what's shaping up to be a very freaky February at the Mausoleum with titles from One 7 Movies, Impulse Pictures and Vinegar Syndrome being reviewed daily. Enjoy!
Sex Hunter: Wet Target (1972) is an early Roman-Porno entry that's a more of a revenge-thriller along the lines of Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973) than a nasty slice of erotic cinema, but only just barely. A story of vengeance as sought by Okamoto (Jojo Sawada), the brother of Natsuko (Miyoko Aoyama), a young woman gang-raped and hung till death by a trio of drunken American soldiers on a weekend bender in Japan.
The opening scenes of the rape of Natsuko and her best friend Etsuko (Hiroko Isayama) is gut-punching stuff and not for the timid. It only gets worse with each subsequent flashback to the tragic night as more and more details are revealed as details are remembered by eye-witnesses - each new flashback revealing yet another layer of depravity.
Okamoto's is haunted by his sisters nightmarish death and his search for the offenders sends him to work at a strip club where his sister was once employed. Immersed in the underbelly of the seedy nightclub he performs a live-sex show with Etsuko who survived the attack but suffers from some form of brain-damage following the incident. The two join forces along with the club owner, a former lover of the victim who knows more than he initially lets on. Okamoto's single-minded quest for revenge transforms him into a rather despicable person, in fact I found it increasingly difficult to sympathize with a character who mouth-rapes (and quite a bit more) women who are blameless in the matter even if they weren't particularly sympathetic character themselves.
So what we end-up with is a violent rape-revenger wrapped up in the seedy trappings of a trashy exploitation film with a lot of what you might expect. The dark titillation of live sex shows, plenty of nudity, plus the gang-rape and sickening degradation of women. Not only raped but pissed upon afterward and when a man accidentally stumbles upon the crime in progress he is forced to lick the urine from her body- it's dark stuff... and then there's the whole vomiting cum after being mouth-raped scene...
The DVD from Impulse Pictures looks great with a anamorphioc widescreen (2.35:1) transfer that's solid and a decent Japanese language Dolby Digital tracks with optional English subtitles. Special features are pretty bare with just a trailer and the usual booklet with liner notes from Japanese film scholar Jasper Sharp - which are quite informative.
Par for the course for the Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection is how very strange a watch this winds up being. Not so typical is what damn decent violent, revenge-thriller it turned out to be. Of course, there's the prerequisite naked women and oodles of sleaze plus the added bonus of an compelling story which cannot be said of all the Nikkatsu movies. A decent watch - even our protagonist is a low-life - if you crave rape-revengers with some strong exploitation elements this just might be for you. 3 Outta 5
