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Released by: Impulse Pictures
Released on: July 10th, 2018.
Director: Kí´yí» Ohara
Cast: Nami Misaki, Ayako í”ta, Tsutomu Akashi, Gorí´ Kataoka, Yí»ichi Minato, Mayo Miyamoto, Ken Mizoguchi
Year: 1982
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The Movie:
Director Kí´yí» Ohara has been well served thus far in Impulse Pictures' Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection line. All of his entries (reviewed here) have been both entertaining and genuinely sleazy but it's his 1982 film White Rose Campus: Everyone Gets Raped (understandably abbreviated on the cover art for this domestic DVD release as simply White Rose Campus) that really takes the proverbial cake.
The title of the film pretty much tells you the basic plot - a trio of insane perverts highjacks a bus that the young women of the White Rose Academy are on for a field trip, along with their female teacher. Once they've got things under control, the men decide who is attractive enough to stay on the bus and who is ugly enough to be removed and left at the side of the road. The men then proceed to terrorize and rape the rest of the girls, one of them getting off on used tampons.
As all of this plays out, we do come to learn that there's a bit more to all of this than just the serial rape and brutal harassment put upon these young women. We segue into their backstories a bit, learning about what wound up putting the teacher here and about what some of the students were up to before all of this occurred. And there is, not so surprisingly, an interesting twist towards the end. Actually, there's a couple of twists, and they're both clever and unexpected.
Like most of the Nikkatsu roman porno movies made around this time, White Rose Campus features some pretty strong production values. Ohara and company are savvy enough to use a lot of handheld camerawork to 'put' the viewer in the bus with the girls. This not only increases the tension but almost makes us complacent in all of this. Whether that was intentional or not is debatable but the camera is frequently put front and center for the assaults and while the picture, like all others of its ilk, uses optical fogging and conveniently placed objects in the foreground of specific shots to keep things from getting too revealing. The whole thing is misogynistic to an extreme and there's a fairly constant stream of abuse and perversity on parade throughout the film's sixty-six-minute running time, but it's hard to take the picture too seriously (though it's all so over the top that it's hard to say if we were meant to in the first place).
Ohara controls the pacing quite effectively, mixing enough of an actual story in alongside the stronger exploitation elements to keep the forward momentum going right up until the end. The performances are pretty solid as well, particularly the older man who plays the tampon freak - this guy gives 110% percent from start to finish, never showing any signs of malaise and never tiring and instead demonstrating admirable dedication to his perversions and his kinks!
Video/Audio/Extras:
White Rose Campus looks just fine 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 trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
White Rose Campus is deliriously trashy exploitation, seriously sleazy stuff. It's completely over the top but not without a twisted sense of humor to it - and to give credit where credit is due, the movie manages to work in a few clever and unexpected plot devices just to keep things interesting. The DVD release is light on extras but it looks and sounds quite good - absolutely recommended for those who have enjoyed this line so far.
A different kind of TRIP WITH THE TEACHER.
Ohara was a very solid director of such material.