Wikipedia

Female Cats

Female Cats (女猫, Meneko) is a 1983 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Shingo Yamashiro and starring Ai Saotome.

Female Cats
Theatrical poster for Female Cats (1983)
Directed byShingo Yamashiro[1]
Written by
  • Makoto Naitō
  • Kochiho Katsura
Produced by
  • Yutaka Okada
  • Kimio Shindō
StarringAi Saotome
CinematographyYonezō Maeda
Edited byAkira Suzuki
Music byTarō Morimoto
Distributed byNikkatsu
Release date
  • December 23, 1983 (1983-12-23)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

Synopsis

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Innocent female doctor Mineko was seduced by Sachiko, an aggressive lesbian, in her younger days. Mineko begins dating a male coworker, and accepts an invitation to a party at the home of a transvestite patient. Sachiko comes out of Mineko's past, enraged with jealousy, and begins tormenting Mineko and her boyfriend.[2][3]

Cast

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  • Ai Saotome: Mineko Kagami[4]
  • Sachiko Itō: Kotoe Hiratsuka
  • Koichi Iwaki: Shari
  • Hiroshi Nawa: Tarō Iruka
  • Kōji Minakami: Mamoru Iruka
  • Akiyoshi Fukae: Takehiko Ōbayashi
  • Yoshishige Ōtsuka: Eiko Kanzaki
  • Yoshishige Ōtsuka: Akiko Kanzaki
  • 美露: Tommy
  • Mitsu Senda: Jōji
  • Kotomi Aoki: Akane Minakawa
  • Mariko Nishina: Hiromi
  • Keiichi Satō: Mikami
  • Ryūji Katagiri: Abe
  • Madoka Sawa: Julie
  • Akira Takahashi: Keiji
  • Hiromichi Nakahara: Movie star

Critical appraisal

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Female Cats director Shingo Yamashiro was best known as an actor, having debuted in 1957.[5] He appeared in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series, and one of his better-known appearance for Western audiences is in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Sweet Home (1989).[5][6]

In his Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema, Jasper Sharp uses Female Cats as an example of the range of themes possible in the Roman Porno genre, calling it an Argento-esque thriller.[3] In their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, the Weissers compliment Yamashiro's direction as the best thing about the film. They write that he, "goes the extra mile to compose many astonishingly good-looking sequences, punctuated by some creatively stylish camerawork."[2] A lesbian shower sequence between Mineko and Sachiko is singled out for praise. The scene is shot from the shower faucet's point of view, through a spray of water.[2] However they fault the film's unimaginative script and its "lurid plot".[2]

Availability

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Female Cats was released theatrically in Japan on December 23, 1983.[7] It was released to home video in VHS format in Japan on March 16, 1984, and re-issued on June 22, 1990. It was released as part of the Nikkatsu Roman Porno Series of VHS releases on December 6, 1991.[8][9][10] It was released on DVD in Japan on December 4, 1998, and re-released on DVD on June 23, 2006, as part of Geneon's fourth wave of Nikkatsu Roman porno series.[11][12] In this format it was issued in the 4-disc Roman Porno series DVD Box, Vol. 1 on March 7, 2008.[13] It is currently scheduled to be released in the USA on DVD May 7, 2013, under the title 'She Cat'.

Bibliography

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English

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  • "MENEKO". Complete Index to World Film. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  • Mesu neko (1983) at IMDb
  • Sharp, Jasper (2008). Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. Guildford: FAB Press. pp. 127, 367. ISBN 978-1-903254-54-7.
  • Weisser, Thomas; Yuko Mihara Weisser (1998). Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films. Miami: Vital Books : Asian Cult Cinema Publications. ISBN 1-889288-52-7.

Japanese

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Notes

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  1. ^ 女猫(1983) (in Japanese). allcinema.net. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  2. ^ a b c d Weisser, p. 140.
  3. ^ a b Sharp, Jasper (2008). Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. Guildford: FAB Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-903254-54-7.
  4. ^ 女猫(1983)(邦画) (in Japanese). Kinema Junpo. Archived from the original on 2011-10-07. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  5. ^ a b "Film, TV actor Yamashiro dies at 70". Kyodo News. Japan Times. 2009-08-15. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  6. ^ Weisser, p. 180.
  7. ^ "女猫". Japanese Cinema Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Archived from the original on 2012-03-11. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  8. ^ "女猫 (VHS)" (in Japanese). Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  9. ^ "女猫 (VHS)" (in Japanese). Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  10. ^ 女猫 早乙女愛 日活名作映画館ロマンシリーズ (VHS) (in Japanese). ASIN 4890650814.
  11. ^ "女猫 (DVD)" (in Japanese). Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  12. ^ ジェネオン エンタテインメントよりＤＶＤリリース (in Japanese). P.G. Web Site. Archived from the original on May 1, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-17.
  13. ^ "日活名作ロマンシリーズDVD-BOX 女優選集 Vol.1" (in Japanese). Retrieved 2009-09-17.
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