ORGIES OF EDO (1969) Blu-ray
Director: Teruo Ishii
Arrow Video USA

Arrow Video and Teruo Ishii swap "malformed men" for exploited, perverted, and vengeful women on their Blu-ray of Toei's "pink violence" anthology ORGIES OF EDO.

Beneath the pomp and prosperity of the Edo period (1603-1868) is a "depravity and sickness of the soul" as observed by town doctor Gentatsu (Teruo Yoshida, GOKE: BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL) as observer and unwilling participant in three stories detailing the sexual experiences of women. The good doctor is first brought Oito (Masumi Tachibana, TOKYO BAD GIRLS) who has suffered a vicious beating and wounds to her stomach and genitals which threaten not only her survival but that of her unborn child. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she recalls being herself and her sister Kinu (Kei Kiyama, HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN) rescued from assault by a thuggish debt collectors by gallant Hanji (Toyozô Yamamoto, SPRING DREAMS). Oito falls in love with Hanji and is willing to do anything necessary when she learns that he is now in debt for paying off her own. Forced to become a geisha girl, she is subject to the humiliations and abuse of others who mistake her meekness for superiority, but she endures until she discovers the depth of her lover's betrayal. Things go from the melodramatic to the kinky as pining servant Chôkichi (Akira Ishihama, DAYDREAM) implores the doctor to examine his mistress Ochise (Mitsuko Aoi, WORSHIP OF THE FLESH) who can only make love to men who are disfigured, deformed, or otherwise rejected by society (including an African man whose race is fetishized in pornography of the era). Putting Ochise under hypnosis, he discovers the root of her pathology, and her servant soon turns to extreme ends to make himself desirable to her and to make her only desirable to him. The final story concerns a sadistic lord Torakichi (Shôhei Yamamoto, SISTER STREET FIGHTER) who keeps a stable of young women for his aberrant tastes. During his latest diversion in which he sets loose bulls with flaming horns upon a group of female musicians dressed in red, he is drawn to the only survivor Mitsu (Miki Obana, TOKUGAWA: THE JOYS OF TORTURE) whose tastes turn out to match his own. When she exposes Okon's (Yukie Kagawa, FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION: JAILHOUSE 41) penchant for bestiality to Torakichi, Okon saves herself from torture and death with the promise of a special game for which Gentatsu is both observer and unwilling participant.

One of studio Toei's early contributions to the trend of violent and sexual "pink" films, a trend from the late sixties onwards meant to draw back audiences to theaters from their television sets that also included Nikkatsu's cycle of "Roman porno" and Shochiku's Tokatsu films, ORGIES OF EDO was also one of the first films to give contract director Teruo Ishii creative free reign to indulge his tastes for the erotic, violent, and surreal that would become a staple of his work even in more "conventional" genres from 35mm film to lower budget shot-on-video until his death in 2005. ORGIES OF EDO runs the gamut from the melodramatic to the vicious with relatively tame nudity in keeping with the period contrasted with some blunt violence and shocking bloodshed let down only by some rather crude make-up effects work. Ishii is greatly aided by cinematographer Sadatsugu Yoshida (SAMURAI WOLF) whose striking compositions impose a sense of the gothic on some of the more intimate moments of horror while scenes like Hanji's assault on Oito are romanticized by the setting of a fabric market in which the actors are framed between strips of different patterned cloth running along the floor and more strips above them in front of the camera that give the scene the look of a chessboard. The music of Masao Yagi (SCHOOL OF THE HOLY BEAST) also incorporates traditional instruments, Western suspenseful stabbing strings, and almost jazzy to psychedelic passages. As grim and audacious as the final product is, it does feel like a dry run for Ishii's HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN for Toei or his later BLIND WOMAN'S CURSE for Nikkatsu.

Unreleased in the United States theatrically or on video, ORGIES OF EDO comes to 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray looking better cared for and mastered than the HD masters of Nikkatsu and Toho productions. Blacks are deep, reds are highly saturated, damage is rare, and the image is mostly fine-grained apart from some opticals including the credits sequence. The Japanese LPCM 1.0 mono track is also very clean, highlighting dialogue, screams, and the scoring while optional English subtitles are available. Extras are limited to the film's theatrical trailer (2:38) and "The Orgies of Ishii" (16:01), an interview with TOKYOSCOPE author Patrick Maccias who covers the pink film trend, Ishii's career as a contract director for Toei and how his creativity flowered with the genre even though he is otherwise hard to pigeonhole, and the influence of Edogawa Rampo on his films (including direct adaptations like HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN). Not provide for review were the reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Griffin or the illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Tom Mes included only with the first pressing. (Eric Cotenas)

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