Beauty Hunting

It's been a while, eh?

Not a lot to report from the work world, though a project has re-surfaced that I hinted at many months ago, and if it comes through, it'll mean a cool bit of work for us and eventually a great DVD for Japanese cinema fans. More on that as details arise.

Speaking of many months ago, a project I worked on back in November of 2007 recently saw the light of day. This week, Discotek Media offshoot label Eastern Star released their DVD of Norifumi Suzuki's solo Roman Porno effort, 1979's Star of David: Hunting for Beautiful Girls (aka Dabide no hoshi - bishojo gari), and I encourage all fans of ahem, adventurous cinema to pick up a copy. It's one of Suzuki's best films and also one of the better titles produced by Nikkatsu during their Roman Porno period. We shot a video interview with Suzuki and also recorded a commentary with him and film writer Kiichiro Yanashita, and it's pretty fun.

And no worries about the silly cover-up applied to Hiromi Namino's ticket-sellers on the domestic cover, shown above in all its glory. The disc includes a reversible sleeve you can adjust after opening to put the actress's glamorous mams on the outside, for all your houseguests to see. Blame puritanistic retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart for the need to print two versions of a DVD cover; as if they'd even carry a movie like this, anyway!

So please check out the disc if you have a chance, and either rent or purchase it. Downloading stuff that's easily available, particularly from small labels struggling to stay alive, is just plain stupid in today's market. Anybody who does so can't really call themselves a fan of the genre, since they're contributing to its death. Watch this space for some more updates soon, about Synapse's upcoming Meiko Kaji two-fer discs, a terrific cinema and theatre space in Tokyo where the Suzuki interview was done (called Laputa!), and eventually, the work I hinted at at the beginning of this post.