When it comes to outrageous film titles that demand attention, Japanese pink films pretty much take the cake. A quick Google search will pull up such fine titles as Modern Female Ninja: Flesh Hell, Birth Control Revolution, and The Embryo Hunts in Secret. One of my favorite titles from the genre has to go to Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands, a Japanese neo-noir thriller that just received a brand new restoration and blu-ray release from boutique label Deaf Crocodile. The film was written and directed by Atsushi Yamatoya, who co-wrote Branded to Kill with Seijun Suzuki. Both films were released in 1967 at the height of the Japanese New Wave film movement, and include more than a few characteristics synonymous with New Wave cinema, including innovative editing, relentlessly cool characters, and a creeping self-awareness. Unlike Branded to Kill, Inflatable Sex Doll was produced as a pink film, and features one of the queens of the genre, Noriko Tatsumi. For the uninitiated, the term “pink film” describes a sort of erotically charged Japanese sexploitation-style film produced by an independent studio, often with plenty of nudity. Inflatable Sex Doll takes up a space on the fringes of pink film, with its sexual content being more lurid and dark than the sensual mood most often associated with the genre. Themes of sexual violence and the objectification of women permeate the film. While the scenes that do interweave sex and violence can be discomforting and filled with nudity, they never get too explicit; still, consider this a fair warning that it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
The film follows our protagonist Sho, a hitman who is hired by a wealthy real estate investor named Naka to hunt down the men who raped and killed Naka’s girlfriend, Rie. We first encounter the two in the titular wasteland, where Naka challenges Sho to shoot a small liquor bottle he placed on a skinny tree in the distance. If he’s able to hit the bottle in no more than three shots, he gets the job. Instead, Sho lets fly a barrage of bullets that splits the tree in two. As a result it is well established before the title credits even roll that this is a world in which men respect only violence, with no regard for life.
Not long after the credits roll Naka shows Sho a snuff film of Rie being assaulted and murdered, during which the hitman flippantly criticizes the cinematography. The job, however, strikes a personal cord with Sho, whose own girlfriend was also killed 5 years prior in what he describes as “a really dreadful way” by a man named Ko. As Sho sleuths his way towards the hooded men he’s hunting down he quickly discovers that his nemesis Ko is behind it all, simultaneously raising the stakes and giving him a chance at revenge.The journey to his target is disjointed and surreal, and mixes present day events with flashbacks in a manner where time begins to blur with a dreamlike illogicality that is only heightened when Sho discovers that Naka’s murdered girlfriend may not be as dead as she seems.
Sho is a natural badass, with the class and cunning of a high-end hitman as well as the swagger and shooting skills of a seasoned cowboy. Much like all of the other male characters, he is preoccupied with violence to the point of obsession. He loves any opportunity to talk about how much damage his dum dum bullets can cause, and rarely takes off his fingerless shooting glove. He kills with ease during the film’s action-packed shootouts, of which there are several. At one point a woman trying to seduce him points out that he is more in love with his gun than he could ever be with any woman. This is an assertion that seems to hold up based on Sho’s actions throughout the story.
The cinematography in Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands is dazzling and disorienting. In true noir fashion everything is shot in stark black and white. The film makes excellent use of hand-held camerawork and uniquely skewed angles that enhance the surreal and sometimes illogical narrative that unfolds throughout its runtime. While there are some scenes that slowly build tension, much of the editing in the movie is frenetic and at times downright dizzying, especially during the montage sequences. The overall mood is amplified by a jazz score that consists of smooth but foreboding melodies punctuated by frantic sonic freakouts.
The film plays with time to further disorient the viewer. Sho regularly brings up the fact that his girlfriend was killed at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, a time that he vows to exact his revenge on Ko. During an incredibly tense scene between the two at an empty bar he even tells Ko “Every day at 3 o’clock I kill you in my daydreams.” As mentioned earlier the film makes such strong use of flashbacks it sometimes becomes difficult to differentiate the past from the present.
Another element that helps add to the movie’s dreamlike nature is its depiction of communication through telephone. It is implied early on that Sho hears the death cries of his former girlfriend over the telephone. Throughout the film vital information is conveyed to him through mysterious phone calls. The importance of the use of telephones is foreshadowed in the very first scene when the camera pans down to a broken phone placed in the middle of an empty dirt road.
At its core Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands is an idiosyncratic enigma of a thriller that values its overall mood over the rationality of the plot. It feels like it takes place in an alternate version of our reality, and holds up a mirror to the dark underbelly of our own troubled world to critique the violence and misogyny that’s all too prevalent in the most toxic forms of modern masculinity. It does so in a manner that’s engaging and incredibly entertaining. Viewers who appreciate a good mix of sleaze and substance in their movies are sure to enjoy the wild and gritty trip Sho takes down the rabbit hole in this underseen gem.
