Released by: Pink Eiga
Released on: 3/14/2011
Director: Mototsugu Watanage
Cast: Shiori Kuroda, Nao Saito, Shoko Kudo, Shin Yamazaki, Jimmy Tsuchida
Year: 2000
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The Movie:
From the director of Sexy Battle Girls comes 2000's Whore Angels, a film that begins when a random cowgirl named Joshu Komasa (Shiori Kuroda) shows up at a whore house called the Hot Lips Salon after finding an advertisement looking to hire a hostess. Though the club owner (Jimmy Tsuchida) is initially hesitant, she gives him a handjob and soon convinces him to take her on board, much to the dismay of a few of the other ladies in his employ.
When walking home from work one night, Joshu runs into a purple haired woman named Monroe (Nao Saito) who is in the midst of a scuffle with a demon named Rock 'n' Roll (Shuetsu Tokaichi). She saves Monroe's ass but not before taking a bit of a beating from the big bad demon. Amazingly enough, however, Monroe heals Joshu by giving her a deep kiss - though she's initially hesitant to accept a little girl on girl action, the healing powers of Monroe's mouth soon change her mind and they get it on at which point Joshu learns that Monroe's hoo-haw is shaped like a heart - so logic would dictate that she's an angel, right?
Thanks to Joshu, Monroe gets a job at the Hot Lips Salon and soon, thanks to the healing power of her mouth, winds up the most in demand girl on the payroll, her blowjobs almost instantly becoming the stuff of legend. Things get complicated when Joe (Shin Yamazaki), a man in Mariachi garb claiming to be an Italian, shows up looking for Monroe, but he won't say what it is he needs to speak to her about, only that it's important - Rock 'n' Roll, however, is still on the hunt and will stop at nothing to destroy Monroe and stop her from healing everyone with her magic blowjob powers.
So yeah, magic blowjob powers - how rad is that? This movie is nuts, and it doesn't even try to bother with things like reality or logic. Rather, it's a series of sexy set pieces - and the sex scenes are very well done here, not just from the performance side of things but from the staging side as well (sticking within the confines of Japanese censorship laws and losing none of their heat in the process). Some top notch camera work and a very daring cast help cover up the fact that this was made on a very low budget, though there are almost times where the film seems to revel in that fact that it's been made for little money as opposed to try and intentionally cover it up. The point we're trying to get to here is that the movie is so fun you won't care that the costumes are store bought or that the effects are more than low-fi.
Given the film's good versus evil/heaven versus Hell premise you'd think it might get pretentious, but no, nothing of the sort happens here at all. The film is refreshingly cheeky, all involved obviously having a good time with the job at hand and with the material to the point where it's infectious. Yes, this is a very sexually graphic film that deals with some material that could potentially offend those of a certain religious demographic but c'mon, you'd have to have a stick up your ass not to see the humor in the situations here and be dead from the waist down not to appreciate the sex scenes.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Unfortunately, the 1.85.1 widescreen transfer is non-anamorphic and interlaced. It's a newer picture so there isn't any dirt or debris to complain about and the colors, including the black levels, are fairly strong but the standard letterboxed presentation feels a bit dated. That said, it's all perfectly watchable. The image is clean, though skin tones look a little bit greenish in spots. There are some mild compression artifacts and some mild edge enhancement problems here and there and detail isn't particularly strong. Had this been anamorphic it'd have definitely scored higher - it's certainly watchable enough, but there are people who are going to want more out of a DVD than watchable enough.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track on the disc is in Japanese with optional English subtitles. There's a bit of channel separation here and there in regards to the score and the dialogue is clear enough. The subs are easy to read and free of any obvious typos. All in all, the movie sounds fine.
First up, as far as the extras go, is an interview with Yutaka Ikejima, also known as “Mr. Pink,†an expert on this uniquely Japanese genre of sex films, who speaks for twelve minutes or so about what makes these films interesting and why you might want to seek out more of them. Additionally, there's an eight minute interview with cinematographer Masahide Iioka, who has worked with director Mototsugu Watanage for years and who isn't afraid to talk about his time with him. Here he discusses how his background in still photography helped him get into shooting pink films and how the distribution for these movies works in Japan.
Aside from that, look for a trailer for the feature, trailers for a bunch of other Pink Eiga releases, some cast and crew bios, a still gallery, menus and chapter stops.
The Final Word:
If you can look past the non-anamorphic transfer, this is a pretty great release overall. The audio is fine and there are plenty of extra features to add some value to the disc. As to the movie itself? It's pretty out there but a whole lot of good, dirty fun - plenty sexy, and an interesting low budget approach to what is ultimately a fairly high concept sex film.