There
were hard and fast rules for the making of Nikkatsu’s so-called Roman P*rn*
series of films, sort of like a sonnet or a haiku. They had to be under eighty
minutes, with a sex scene due every ten minutes. Having saved the studio from
financial ruin in the 1970s, they have recently dusted the tried-and-true
formula for old times’ sake as well as potentially lucrative territorial sales
and back-end deals, so to speak. This time around, they have recruited some
surprisingly well-known filmmakers, including Akihiro Shiota (Dororo), whose Wet Woman in the Wind (NSFW trailer here) screens during
this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.
Shiori
is trouble with a capital “T.” Where she goes, her elevated pheromones cause irrational
sexual behavior, but Kosuke is determined not to play her game. The former
womanizing playwright has sequestered himself in a remote cabin to detox and
maybe find himself. Shiori is not part of his plans. Of course, she takes his
resistance as a challenge. As fate (and Nikkatsu) would have it, his former
theater troupe will come blundering along, bringing plenty of unwitting
accomplices (of both genders) to help stir Kosuke’s jealousy. Of course, he is not about to take all that
lying down.
So
yes, Wet Woman in the Wind is
screening at the Lincoln Center, home of the Metropolitan Opera, The New York
City Ballet, and the New York Philharmonic. Seems fitting, right? You could say
there’s a lot of choreography in the film. There are certainly plenty of bodies
in motion and physical comedy aplenty.
Frankly,
Wet probably could have passed for
brilliant cultural criticism in the early 1970s. It feels like it stepped out
of 1969, with its lead character, a sort of nymphomaniacal Amélie breaking down
square sexual inhibitions and Kosuke going back to nature to get in touch with
his true feelings or whatever. However, as a throwback, it is more honest about
its horndog proclivities.
