Hatsujô kateikyôshi: Sensei no aijiru

This movie has generally been panned in the US by people who insist on approaching it entirely as a political satire. It is somewhat lame in that respect with a bizarro plot about a bubble-headed prostitute, "Sachiko Hanai" who turns into a super-genius after she is shot in the head, and then becomes embroiled in a plot by the North Koreans and Japanese Yakuza to use a cloned, disembodied finger of George W. Bush to start WWIII. (Bush, of course, is a very easy international target, but the scene where his finger sexually assaults the heroine would have been far more believable frankly if it was Bill Clinton's cloned finger).

As a nuclear-themed political satire, this is not going to make anybody forget about "Dr. Strangelove", but it's important to remember that this is basically a sex film. "Sachiko Hanai" is a lot more sexy and spends a lot more time naked than Peter Sellers in his three roles in "Dr. Strangelove". And the scene where she throws hot sex on a middle-aged college professor while they discuss Kirkegaard and Noam Chomsky may not be the most clever satire imaginable, but by the very lame international standards of comedy in sex films, it's positively brilliant.

This is a latter-day Japanese "pink" film, which is about the only genre left anywhere in the world where you have erotic films with ANYTHING of interest in them beyond the sex. If you want clever political satire, there's certainly much better movies than this. On the other hand, if you're nothing but a hairy-palmed, ceiling painter, the plot here, and the (somewhat) non-graphic sex, will no doubt only serve to distract you from the matter at, um, hand. There is always a place though as far as I'm concerned for a film like this that is decently made (relatively speaking, of course) and that combines sex appeal with something that is at least a little more interesting.

When I walked out of the theatre, someone commented to his friend if there was any deeper meaning to the film which he might have failed to realize. Sorry, I think it's safe to say that Glamorous Life is pure soft porn, disguised as an art house movie. There are plenty of movies like these (think Immortel), which somehow managed to come through unscathed by the censors and given the R21 rating for its release during SIFF here.

C'mon, I mean (and I'm not complaining - I enjoy the occasional sexy-sexy shows OK?) right from the beginning you're teased by Sachiko's butt and boobs. She's a call girl for hire, playing to her client's fantasies, like role playing a school teacher. One fine day, she got caught up in a restaurant shootout, and escaped alive with a bullet lodged in the head. She undergoes an unexplainable transformation, in terms of intelligence, gaining an insatiable desire for knowledge, as well as having a supercharged sex drive.

Bunking in with the family of a professor she seeked, more sex is assured with the professor and his introverted son. But the weirdness factor got upped through the introduction of George Bush's cloned finger (comes with the Stars-and-Stripes painted on the nail), which has telepathy, and a life of its own. Since it's a finger, there's no prizes guessing correctly what a finger gotta do. The movie becomes a cheap satire on Bush and his pro-war policies, and I'm not too sure if it's for pure cheesiness or a low production budget which led to wire-work not being cleaned up, and cheapo GI-Joe toy figurines substituting the real Joes, and a really tacky looking Bush who creatively uses his fingers over the airwaves.

As another subplot, the North Korean gunman who's looking for the finger, and was responsible for the bullet in Sachiko's head, ended up trying to hunt Sachiko down, through tracing her contact via her mobile phone, staking out inside her home (cleaning the home, keeping her red panties, and fantasizing), and through an incredible stroke of luck, got to the home of the professor to get to Sachiko. He provided much of the laughs (though I don't think most was intentional), as the gunfights he had (some which made not much sense) turned out to be rather comical instead.

I think I can count up till about at least seven sex scenes, and another equivalent number of masturbation scenes, for the reason that Sachiko doesn't feel a thing why having sex, and only feels the (pleasurable) effects some time after. Sexploitation? You tell me. Works out to be about one sex scene every 7 minutes.

It's one of those movies which almost every male character has sex with the female lead, and the female characters having the urge to remove (or forcefully so) their clothing. It's campy, it doesn't make much sense, and most of what you see on screen, is probably just for the sake of being there. You know not to take this movie seriously when the American national anthem accompanies the end credits, sung badly in Japanese, with an after-the-end-credits scene that simply just implodes.

If you're feeling horny, then this movie might just be your cup of tea.

violence and sex burning high in a dizzy flash that projects the built icon of our contemporary world, America and her leader.

you can put yourself through many intriguing ideas throughout this movie. do Japanese love urban America lifestyle? are they just addicted to the glamour fantasy like on a cheap drug? or do they seriously take it as a joke upon themselves that ultimately hits back to the source?

giving in to the senses will melt preconceptions and make it so more real... but don't just take it for the lust it brings upon you. if you do give in try to keep yourself cool

• it's like a bullet in the head!

Apparently, one critic described "Hatsujo kateikyoshi: sensei no aijiru" (called "The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai" in English) as "Fahrenheit 9/11" directed by David Cronenberg. I actually think that I would describe it as "Enemy of the State" directed by Russ Meyer. In fact, I don't know whether to recommend this movie or pan it. True, it deals with the invasion of Iraq, but a porno movie - whether hard core or soft core - is not exactly the place to talk politics! On one level, this movie could lead to hypocrisy accusations: while trying to expose political issues, they spend half of the movie showing off the woman's body, and the whole thing is really just a chauvinist fantasy. If you ask me, these sorts of movies don't really merit controversy.

So, see it if you want, and see whether or not you can come up with a solid opinion of it.

First off, I think the other reviewer was himself too wrapped up in the sex scenes and completely missed the charm of this film. Yes, this is a sex movie and yes the sex scenes do go on for quiet a while and yes the lead actress Emi Kuroda is nude quite a bit. For some, all that can either be a deterrent but you should neither dismiss nor approve of this film.

I can say this. The film is offbeat and has a distinct charm and sense of humor to it. In this world where Transformers is the number 1 movie in America (God help us all), The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai is a much needed change of pace.

Again, I will stress. Do not dismiss this film because of the sex and nudity in it. Watch it through and you will like it. Also, ignore the box calling it "a mixture of Godard and the South Park crew." Godard could never make a movie like this