Tweet
Released by: Impulse Pictures
Released on: June 3rd, 2014.
Director: Yusaru Uegaki
Cast: Akasaka Rei, Jogenji Kurumi, Junpei Kusami, Kaori Kuno
Year: 1985
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Yoshio Uwagaki was more accomplished doing second unit work for Nikkatsu but he still managed to crank out a not insignificant amount of directorial efforts for the studio in the eighties and then into the nineties. This picture, Office Love: Behind Closed Doors, from 1985 introduces us to Rieko Tamamura (pretty Akasaka Rei), the head secretary at a large travel agency that specializes in booking tours to countries like Australia and ski trips to British Columbia.
Rieko's boss knows she's ambitious and so he periodically asks her to spread her legs on the company's behalf. This might mean engaging in sex with a member of the sales team from a competing organization or it might mean delivering a golden shower into the gaping mouth of a superior. Whatever it takes, it seems that Rieko is willing and able to get the job done. She's also a single mother, her daughter having been fathered by the son of her boss, himself a high ranking member of the company's sales team.
Things get a little rocky for Rieko when she catches the eye of a junior salesman. At first he just makes glances at her but soon enough, they're hanging out at lunch and chatting each other up. He's obviously into her, but complications arise when the father of her child comes back into her life. He's still got the hots for her and she for him but he's married now and his wife (Kaori Kuno) isn't above confronting Rieko is that's what it takes to keep her man. Now turn between the affections of two different men, Rieko must decide not only what she really wants, but how she intends to get it.
Although Office Love: Behind Closed Doors offers up as much kinky sex as you'd expect from a Nikkatsu Roman Porno movie from the mid-eighties (the golden shower scene leaves nothing to the imagination) it plays as more of a straight drama than anything else. Rieko's character is fairly well defined here. As a single mom her company loyalty and all which that entails means she's able to provide for her daughter, as such, she at least has a reason to go to the lengths she goes to in the film. Akasaka Rei plays the part well. She's got the acting chops to handle the dramatic aspects of the character but when the lights go down and the clothes come off, she's a minx. The rest of the cast are fine as well, with the two male leads getting into things in interesting ways, particularly in the last fifteen minutes or so. The believability you'd want from the cast to make a story like this work is definitely there. There's a sadness to the story, however, that (while likely intentional) is hard to ignore. This may take some of the fun out of the more exploitative scenes that audiences come to a movie like this for in the first place, but on the flipside, Yoshio Uwagaki and company get points for trying something different within the established 'rules' of the genre.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Office Love: Behind Closed Doors looks good in this 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Colors are handled well and look quite natural as do skin tones. Black levels aren't quite inky deep but they're strong and detail is pretty good across the board. There are no issues with print damage to complain about and overall this is a clean, sharp, good looking picture free of any obvious digital manipulation of serious compression artifacts.
The Japanese language Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track is crisp and clean though occasionally just a tiny bit shrill. The levels are well balanced and there are no issues with hiss or distortion. The optional English subtitles that are provided are free of any typos and easy to read. This won't floor you but it sounds fine, there are no problems.
Extras on the disc are limited to a menu, chapter selection and a gleefully trashy trailer for the feature that kind of gives away the shock ending. Inside the case we once again find an insert booklet containing some the movie's original poster art and some interesting liner notes from film scholar/author Jasper Sharp that offer up a snapshot of where Nikkatsu was at around the time that this movie was made and that detail the director's involvement with this and other Roman Porno movies.
The Final Word:
Office Love: Behind Closed Doors is more serious than a lot of the other entries in this line have been, almost taking a tragic approach in how it depicts the lengths that its central character will go to in her attempts to make something of herself. The DVD release from Impulse is short on extras but the liners are a good read and the presentation is typically solid. Not the most enjoyable entry in the line, but a well-made film worth checking out.
