Pinku Eiga: An Introduction to Japanese Hardcore Grindcore

Pinku Eiga ("Pink Movie") is a form of Japanese soft-core pornographic Movie that came about in the early 1960's and is still being produced to this day. Pink Movies should not be confused with adult videos and non-Japanese sexploitation Movies. Before the 1960s graphic and gratuitous scenes of nudity and sexual activity in Japanese Movies could only be seen in underground, illegally produced Movies.

In 1964, the first of the Pink Movies was Daydream, the first Pink Movie with a substantially big budget compared to Movies that have been previously produced. Takechi's Pink Movie Black Snow in 1965, resulted in the director being arrested on charges of obscenity. Black Snow caused a high profile trial, which became a major battle between Japan's intellectual community and the conservative establishment's ideology. Takechi inevitably won the lawsuit and the controversial publicity surrounding the trial increased the production of Pink Movies substantially. Three of the most important Pink Movie directors are Hiroshi Mukai, Kinya Ogawa and Shinya Yamamoto. A major Pink Movie studio, Wakamatsu Studios, was formed by director Koji Wakamatsu in 1966. Koji Wakamatsu is well known as "The Pink Godfather" and called "the most important director to emerge in the Pink Movie genre", Wakamatsu's independent productions are critically acclaimed as well as respected works of art concerned with vivid gratuitous sexual scenes and extreme hardcore violence interlaced with political messages.

Nudity and sexual escapades first officially entered Japanese cinema with Satoru Kobayashi's controversial and popular independent production Flesh Market, which most fans and critics consider it being the first true Pink Movie. Kobayashi's independent feature Movie took in over 100 million yen, with the total production cost of the Movie being only 8 million Yen. Tamaki Katori, who was the star of the Movie Flesh Market, exploded on the big screen and skyrocketed, becoming the leading early Pink Movie superstars, with over 600 appearances in total, earning the title "Pink Princess".

Pinku Eiga Movies with highly known directors and superb ultra-violent scenes of rape spawned subgenres which started forming in the 1970's this form of Pinku Eiga was known as Violent Pink. Toei studios' genre of softcore erotic sex and ultra violence Movies is termed "Toei's Pinky Violence". However, a lot of Toei's Pink Movies were not actually centered on eroticism in itself; however Toei used frequent and gratuitous nudity, along with violent action scenes which included some artistic merit, which is not so with Nikkatsu's Pink Movies. Even in this most difficult period for the Pink Movie, the genre never completely died out, and continued exploring new artistic realms.

Some notable directors of Pink Movies include:

Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Masayuki Suo

Yojiro Takita

Yoshimitsu Morita

Takechi Tetsuji

Wakamatsu Koji

Ryuichi Hiroki

Takashi Ishii

Toshiharu Ikeda

Takahisa Zeze

References:

Extensive list of Pinku Eiga films

Chronology of adult videos in Japan

Vital flesh: the mysterious world of Pink Eiga

Pink Films special

Consuming the Female Body: Pinku Eiga and the case of Sagawa Issei