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Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Akihiko Shiota's Wet Woman in the Wind (2016), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing from November 24 - December 24, 2017 as a Special Discovery.Much like Hollywood, the Japanese film industry goes to the well as often as possible once it hits a lucky strike. Such was the case with the so-called Roman Porno films of the 1970s, an infamous genre of sexploitation primarily identified with Japan’s oldest major studio, Nikkatsu. Financial trouble necessitated a popular, inexpensive product, and these softcore numbers were just the ticket. This may have been the studio where Kenji Mizoguchi and Shohei Imamura made films early in their careers, but by 1971 the Roman Porno factory was in full swing, producing quick, cheap, titillating product for an audience hungry for female toplessness and a great deal of convulsive thrusting.

45 years after Nikkatsu switched its focus from making yakuza movies to focusing on softcore erotica, the celebrated Japanese studio returns to the titillating genre with its Roman Porno Reboot project, and has attracted some pretty heavyweight talent along for the ride.   Directors Sion Sono (Why Don't You Play in Hell?, Love Exposure), Hideo Nakata (Ring, Dark Water), Akihiko Shiota (Moonlight Whispers), Kazuya Shiraishi (Love Paradise in Tokyo) and Isao Yukisada (Crying out Love in the Center of the World) were each recruited to make a 70-80 minute film, shot in one week, which will start screening theatrically from late November, as well as on satellite platform SkyPerfecTV!   The features, entitled Battle, Society, Art, Lesbian and Romance each revisit the roman porno genre...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Exclusive: Akihiko Shiota’s latest has gone to South Korea and Taiwan.

Nikkatsu Corporation has sold Akihiko Shiota’s latest film Wet Woman In The Wind, which is set to receive its world premiere in Locarno’s International Competition today Friday (August 5), to South Korea (Orange Yellow Heim) and Taiwan (Movie Cloud).

This is the first Roman Porno film from Nikkatsu in the festival’s main competition since the Japanese company started the softcore porn label in 1971. It also marks the return of Japanese director Shiota to Locarno after his first feature Moonlight Whispers (not a Nikkatsu Roman Porno) was competing for the Golden Leopard in 1999.

The new picture is about a former playwright from the city who seeks to lead a quiet life in the mountain but is caught up in a spiral of desire with a promiscuous young woman. The main cast includes Yuki Mamiya and Tasuku Nagaoka.

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