La femme tatouée

You have to see this movie twice at minimum. In the first fifteen minutes or more you see a man who is completely obsessed by a woman's skin, and he is willing to leave his wife for being with her. But she must have a certain master's tattoo on her back.

When you see this, you will ask yourself what kind of obsession is shown here. But the movie brings you completely in, it catches you with the silent tension, virtuously carried by the great actors, the slow directing and the music. After a while, you are a voyeur of a powerful erotic action, where the sexual act is used to support the act of creativity, and pain is transformed to lust. But the masters way to create his art by abusing the future wearer, destroys his family. He knows that. But he must do it in his way.

There is a bit of a constructed drama here, like in "Manji" (1964), but it makes sense and has much more power. Comparing it to "Pillow book" would be an insult. I love Greenaway's "ZOO", but he couldn't come even near to "Irezumi". For him, Japanese culture is only a vehicle to transport his artificial phrase.

Irezumi is one of my most beloved masterworks. I don't know a movie which has a more erotic - and I mean erotic in the word's best sense - impression, although there is no real sex scene. I gave a 10.

In modern day Tokyo, all types of folks walk around with visible tattoos. From biker to rocker to punk it's very common now.

But back in 1982, tattoos meant one thing, Yakuza. That's the taboo.

A male getting inked meant loyalty, a woman meant ownership. Women ve-e-e-e-e-e-e-ry rarely got them. This talks about one that wanted to.

The subject was a show-stopper at the time. Controversy reigned. But it shows a gutsy move by the lead character and how she deals with life. The romantic interludes might be lost on those with not much knowledge of Japan. If you've been there, you'll get it though.

It moves a bit slow at times, and the print I saw was a bit dark, but it shows a part of Japanese society that's still has a bit of dodginess in it. The woman should be seen as a groundbreaker. Will you see her as one? Go find out.

My review was written in March 1983 at the New Directors/Film Series in a Midtown Manhattan screening.

"Irezumi -Spirit of Tattoo" is an unconvincing and tedious Japanese film using the tattooing ritual as a springboard for tortured passion and corny plot twists. Obvious fest film fest fodder (where seriousness of tone is often confused with art), picture's U. S. import chances are nil.

Initial story premise, adapted by scripter Chino Katsura from a Baku Akae novel harks back to silent-era melodrama (e.g., Tod Browning's 1927 "The Unknown", wherein Lon Chaney Sr. Had his arms amputated to please his neurotic lover Joan Crawford). Librarian heroine Akane (Masayo Utsunomiya) agrees to have her back elaborately and painfully tattooed over a two-year period to satisfy her boss and lover Fjuieda (Yuhsuke Takida), who has a tattoo fetish in addition to his "beauty of a woman's skin" fetish.

Akane is presented as a willful character, but what she sees in the nondescript and bossy Fujieda is never explained or demonstrated. Picture segues instead to its main emphasis upon the tattooist Kyogoro (Tomisaburo Wakayama) who has evolved a peculiar method of his art requiring the woman to be made love to while being tattooed. Amidst much portentous mumbo-jumbo about "living tattoos" and the implication of the art, the viewer is treated to bloody closeups of simulated tattooing and standard softporn genre closeups of Akane groaning with a mixture of pain and pleasure.

Heavy-handed direction by Yoichi Takabayahsi demonstrates almost no narrative skill: every plot detail and twist is first introduced with an emphatic camera movement or racking of focus before its revelatory repetition later, and story periodically halts for a reel of two of lame duck, illustrated flashbacks. Overall effect is akin in a silent film where the dramatic content is developed in the inter-titles rather than through the shots and montage.

By the time the last plot shoe drops, story structure resembles a timid incest film, in which ech of the six main characters is multiply intertwined with one another via blood or sexual relations: foster father, stepfather, second husband, etc. Though the characters are driven (even to suicide) by these contrived linkages, there is no emotional impact provided for the viewer.

In the unplayable lead role, Masayo Utsunomiya has a beautiful face which is about all one can carry away from the picture's trite visual imagery. Her acting is hard to assess, as Takahayashi inconsistently has her strike poses to fit contradictory scenes. As the tattooist, Tomisaburo Wakayama (familiar stocky hero from he Baby Cart series seen here as "Shogun Assassin", presents a dull workman, far removed from the mythical, mystical character in the script. Despite the lurid material, "Irezumi"'s sexual and nude content is minimal.

This is one of those movies which tries hard to be something but ultimately feels like something else. The movies is a kind of erotic exploitation flick as a lady, Akane, agrees to have a large tattoo on her back to please her tattoo obsessed boyfriend (who is a painfully dull character). The tattooist is a retired master with an unusual technique. The movie tries to be about Akane discovering herself through the experience she goes through. However, it really feels more like kinky erotica than drama and might have worked better if developed as such without trying to appeal as a sort of art house drama. That said, there is something oddly compelling about it all and Masayo Utsonomiya plays the role of Akane with aplomb, having just the right blend of vulnerability, desire and detrmination.

This is what i called misleading of culture. I believe the movie does not represent the "missing generation of Japan" nor the entire of Japanese people. It is extremely uncommon that Japanese women have t"Irezumi" on their body. Therefore the movie is a bit of the film-maker imagination. It is not worth seeing the movie unless you would like to see Japanese women' naked bodies. Flat. However the cinematography is pretty nice along with its lighting efforts. It might be interesting for those who can speak Japanese as they can follow the conversation right away. Girls are not pretty enough. I suppose they are the Japanese porn stars. To create balance in the movie, the male actor should be naked too. It creates more natural reality. Don't you think so??