Mahiru no kirisakima

Director Yôjirô Takita, whose 2008 film OKURIBITO (DEPARTURES) won the 2009 Best Foreign Film Academy Award, cut his teeth on "pinku" sex melodramas of which HIGH NOON RIPPER is an undistinguished example. Noriko, a scrappy female journalist and her photographer try to unravel the identity of a brutal killer who only strikes in broad daylight. The story line, which is not very coherent to start with, halts on a regular basis to accommodate scenes of Noriko and others having sex with others or themselves, usually in a shower. Additionally, the movie's plot similarly unravels around a cynical denouement that left this viewer as cold as the corpses that have piled up. HIGH NOON RIPPER (also released as DARKROOM FANTASIES) shares story elements with an earlier, far superior Takita 1983 pinku thriller, RENZOKU BÔKAN (THE SERIAL RAPE MURDERER, or literally, CONTINUOUS RAPE), as well as its lead actress Kaoru Orimoto.

Yes, this is Directed by future Academy Award winner Yojiro Takita but that wasn't for about another 25 years.

This is the story of a magazine writer and photographer pursuing a serial killer. The story has been done before. The problem here is it gets sidetracked on its way to a surprise and stupid ending.

There is more than the normal number of sex scenes even for Pink Eiga including several with female masturbation. Most are not very erotic. None were necessary for the story. As it was 1984 when Adult Video was starting in Japan, IMO they threw in all the (of course simulated & non-explicit) sex scenes to compete with that market.

While this film started out good, the sex scenes interrupted the story and they stopped following the original plot. Very disappointing.