Yuke yuke nidome no shojo

GO, GO, SECOND-TIME VIRGIN! (1969): First things first - quite possibly the best name for a movie ever! A strangely jaunty, optimistic sounding title for such a grim and nihilistic movie though.

"If you tell me why you want to die, then I'll kill you"

"Really?" "Yes?" "It's because I'm so hopelessly unhappy in this life"

(Bit of a rough quote there I'm afraid). GGSTV! opens with a 17 year old girl being dragged to a rooftop and raped by a gang of thugs, whilst a boy of a similar age watches on expressionless. The sun rises the next day to find boy and girl still in the same positions, sat in silence until the girl rises and wishes him "Good morning". Awkward conversation arises, and the girl reveals that this is the second time she's been raped. She is surprised to find that she has bled this time too (hence the title, which is actually a line from a song she sings to herself). The conversation progresses little better when she asks the boy to kill him. Throughout the course of the day, the boy lets her into his own life a little, which we find to be at least as f***ed up as hers. I don't know what it is about the Japanese, but they seem to have a knack of producing the strangest and most disturbed movies in the world. Takashi Miike might be shocking audiences and provoking walk outs now, but 32 years ago Koji Wakamatsu was producing movies that were at least as dysfunctional and disturbing. Whilst the west was having flower power and free love, Japan appears to have had quite a different approach to the hippy movement (though this may not be an entirely representative sample!). If GGSTV! were to be made now, it could only be a student film, and it would be largely criticised for its naivety, probably accused of being self-indulgent. And for having some truly awful acting. But movies in general were different in 1969, and GGSTV! was certainly a pioneering film and seemingly quite sincere in its bleak world view. It feels in many ways more 'film' like than most movies today... the cinematography is all very photographic, and the way the interesting soundtrack is blended with the movie - definitely 'cinema as art'. I'm not going to suggest it's a great movie, but it is fascinating and provocative, and deeply bleak and depressing, so that might appeal to some .

Not an easy and an art movie, Koji Wakamatsu's „Go-Go Second Time Virgin' won't let you without a second see, because it's just amazing. But that's not all. There is a natural tendency of considering this movie as a far-eastern one and especially as a '60's -'70's one. More than that (can you imagine) „Go-Go Second Time Virgin' is a strange and beautiful combination Bunuel-Resnais-Antonioni in a Japanese manner. It is true that the movie is violent, really violent, but physical violence is a indispensable element in „Go-Go Second Time Virgin', especially when the same violence is not being followed for any single moment by Wakamatsu. The TITLE signifies purity, and in the beginning, a 17 years old girl is gang raped on a roof, while a boy is watching without participating. The boy remains there, right next to the raped girl till the morning, 8th of August, a warm and sunny one. The girl gets up and, even though she wasn't a virgin, she still bleeded after the rape. It was the second time she was raped, first time it happened on a beach, and from B/W, the image is now cyan. She bleeded for the second time, because she didn't lose her innocence, and directly comes the title, „Go-Go Second Time Virgin'. For the same reason the movie is „build' on and around a ROOF, with many WHITE SHEETS in the 8th of August morning scene. The girl is sad and she wants to die, and the boy, an anonymous poet, pretends that he does not understand why. We go down the roof in a flat where the image turns for the last time from B/W (not a coincidence) into colour, this time, and there is a murder scene with four bodies and a lot of blood. The victims have sexually molested the boy and he killed them for being „pigs' and that's how ABUSE is introduced. From this moment 'till the end, the movie turns into a not losing purity dilemma, and the climax is the night i'm-gonna-kill-you-dance, all WHITE SHEETS are gone and a misty morning on the 9th of August. As for the set, the image and the shot, Tarkovsky's and Kieslowskyi's fans would be delighted seeing „Go-Go Second Time Virgin' a '65 minutes everyday Masterpiece about trying, keeping and fighting for your own purity. The most violent non-violent film I've ever seen, simply BEAUTIFUL (8/10).

Given that we are dealing with a no budget production shot in a couple of days on top of a roof, the result is astonishing. Koji Wakamatsu has a visual style that outdoes any avantgarde director/photographer with a bigger name. In beautifully shot black and white with some gory color sequences this film takes you on a compelling, nihilistic trip through the claustrophobic existence of two teenagers living on the edge of society. The extreme violence is sometimes lightened by unexpected moments of haunting, morbid poetry. Always true to the characters he has created, Wakamatsu finds beauty where others would only seek for sleaze. This underground masterpiece transcends its humble beginnings and can easily stand comparison with the works of Nagisha Oshima and Seijun Suzuki.

Ive seen alot of films from Japan and other countries. But this has got to be one of the most bizare,yet interesting films that has come out of japan in recent years. Its like a teen angst film gone awry. unlike American teen angst films were you just have a bunch of dialog and crying this one has action and visual imagery that follows the characters though out the whole film the combination of both color and black and white film is a rare treat indeed.

This is one of the weirdest and most unique films I've ever seen. It's artsploitation, and like most artsploitation, its art is questionable. In the end, though, I judged that it was more art than exploitation. Others, and probably the majority, would probably feel the opposite. A shy young man follows a group of men who are dragging a woman up to his apartment building's roof. He watches quietly as they rape her. When she awakes in the morning, she asks him to kill her, for she's too unhappy to live. We discover that he himself is suicidal, and that he harbors a deep curiosity and fear around sex, which has lead him to murder before. It does cross the line several times, especially with a series of photos of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, among which is a picture of Tate's corpse, but there's a lot of interest to grab onto. If nothing else, the stark black and white cinematography is gorgeous, and director Wakamatsu's use of music is masterful. A trip some will definitely want to take, while others, and you probably know it already, should avoid. The director later went on to produce Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses, which, while certainly a good film, is far less daring and compelling as Go Go Second Time Virgin. 9/10.