Une poupée gonflable dans le désert

One might think it's hard to be surprised by a movie called Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands (1967) (aka Dutch Wife in the Desert, or more accurately, Kôya no Dacchi waifu), but then you actually see it and your jaw is pretty much planted on the floor. Directed by Branded to Kill writer, Atsushi Yamatoya, in that quintessentially Japanese '60s Yakuza film style, but taken to an exponential degree on the weirdness meter.

Telling the story of a hitman who has an appointment with the murderer of his girlfriend, it feels like if David Lynch had made a New York City roughie inhabited by Japanese nouvelle vague gangsters it would be this film. It truly has to be seen to be believed. While the story does drag in places, I never lost interest. Camera work is strictly bargain basement with the 'creative' use of out-of-focus shots that seem to indicate there was, in the best tradition of ultra-low budget cinema, not a lot of footage that remained unused.

This film essentially begins with a hitman by the name of "Sho" (Yuichi Minato) meeting a businessman named "Naka" (Masayoshi Nogami) as a discreet location in the countryside to discuss a matter of grave importance. In that regard, Naka tells Sho that a female employee named "Sae" (Noriko Tatsumi) has been kidnapped and is being used as an unwilling participant in films of a sexual nature. Sho agrees to find Sae and immediately begins looking for a man named "Ko" (Shohei Yamamoto) who he believes did something similar with his wife who was subsequently killed. What Sho doesn't count on, however, is that while searching in the sordid underworld for Sae's abductors, things are not necessarily as simple as he would like them to be. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a rather confusing film which had too many subplots and other types of issues which only served to lessen the movie overall. No doubt some will consider it artistic, but I didn't much care for it, and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Surreal and different. At times it brings to mind Bukowski's Pulp and at others I think of Montero Glez's Thirst for champagne. Jazz seeps through the pores of darkness and is one more beautiful corpse on film, come from Coltrane or Miles Davis or a Japanese jazz player. A cinema that is its genre in itself, even if they call it pinku eiga.

If Tarantino had been alive in Japan in 1967he would have made this. Sinister, opaque, disturbing and dodgy on so many levels, yet there's genius in the cruelty

This is Japanese New Wave cinema. A bit surreal. The story (as usual, ignore the IMDB plot summary) begins with a hit man being hired to recover a woman that was kidnapped and used in a porn movie and kill the men responsible. From there things unfold as well as side stories told thru flashbacks and dream sequences.

The common title is "Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands" which has little to do with the movie. It is considered to be an early Pink Eiga film. Yes, there are several scenes with nudity. Even some sex scenes which are very mild compared to pink films of the 1970's & 80's.

It is interesting. I'll give it that. I just feel cheated or just a waste of time with the dream sequences. I would rather they cut those out and we would have a very good 60 minute movie. And they kill a tree.