Woman In A Box 2 (Impulse Pictures) DVD Review

Woman In A Box 2 (Impulse Pictures) DVD Review
Released by: Impulse Pictures
Released on: February 11th, 2019.
Director: Masaru Konuma
Cast: Shihori Nagasaka, Miyuki Kawamura, Mami Ogawa, Natsumi Asai
Year: 1988
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Woman In A Box 2 - Movie Reviews:

This film opens with a montage of young women trapped in a basement dungeon of some sort. She comes out of a wooden box, relieves herself, then goes back in. A man opens the box and sticks his foot inside her mouth and then between her legs before then closing the doors and locking it shut.

From there, we meet a young woman named Kazumi (Miyuki Kawamura). She and her family run a ski resort, the man she calls 'Big Bro' is in charge. He tells her there are a few new customers arriving on the next bus. Her brother's wife has recently left him and it's clear that he's still not quite over it. Kazumi goes on her way and the brother picks up the customers - Yoshie (Mami Ogawa) and her husband, who are looking forward to some time away from the kid. That night, brother has a few drinks with them. The husband passes out brother has rough sex with Yoshie right over top of her blacked out hubbie, who remains oblivious to everything that's going on just inches away from him. They leave the next morning, despite initially planning on staying for a week.

It turns out that brother has been the one keeping that woman in the box in the basement. He unlocks it, injects her with a sedative, puts her naked body in a cardboard box and then drops it at the local delivery depot to have it shipped off to Tokyo! On the drive back he sees a beautiful woman in a white fur coat frolicking in the snow. He stops to watch, and a man with a camcorder, her husband, appears and addresses her as Hiroki (Shihori Nagasaka). Brother is clearly obsessed the moment he sees her and he slits their tire. We cut to him towing their car to his resort where Kazumi, oblivious to what her brother is up to, greets them and brings them in for dinner. That night, while Hiroki and her husband make love, brother is in the basement building himself a new box. It's clear that Hiroki will be his new plaything, whether she wants to be or not, but in order to make that happen brother is going to have to get rid of her husband - how convenient then when he wipes out skiing the next day and winds up in the hospital with a broken back.

Things get even weirder when Kazumi gets jealous of her brother's attraction to Hiorki and proceeds to strip and throw herself at him! When her brother understandably pushes her away, she runs off to satisfy her needs with a romp in her room with her boyfriend. Brother, meanwhile, makes it clear to Hiroki just exactly what he wants from her and while she does her best to get away from him, he's bigger and faster than she is - and much, much crazier!

Not quite as twisted as Masaru Konuma's original Woman In A Box: Virgin Sacrifice, this is still plenty sleazy and quite rough at times. Very little of the sex in this picture is consensual and brother is quite literally a sexual terrorist, caging Hiroki in the box and then tormenting her by cutting portions of it out with a chainsaw, hoisting it up with a chain and swinging it around to disorient her and then letting her out of the box, but not the basement - and all this after he tries to drown her and rape her! And it gets even worse for her from there. Poor Kazumi, clearly in love with her brother, has no idea the depths to which his depravity will sink!

All of this is surprisingly well shot. The technical merits of the film are actually very strong and while it was clearly made without a massive budget, the ski lodge location proves to be the perfect spot to stage all of this. The cinematography is top notch (despite the legally required optical fogging censorship so common in Japanese films like this) and the score does a perfect job of accentuating everything a good score should accentuate. Performances are also strong, with poor Shihori Nagasaka really put through the ringer and seriously convincing in the way that she portrays her incredibly abused character!

Woman In A Box 2 - Blu-ray Review:

Woman In A Box 2 is presented in 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen. This one looks like it was shot on film but clearly comes from an analogue source of some kind, likely a master tape. Keeping that in mind, this transfer isn't bad at all, though it's clearly not great. The source is stable and watchable enough. Detail, yes, is limited by the source but it's not bad and colors are reproduced pretty well.

The Japanese language Dolby Digital Mono track is fine. It's a bit flat but it's clean enough and properly balanced with no noticeable hiss or distortion. The white subtitles are clean, clear and easy to read and free of any noticeable typographical errors.

There are no extras, just a static menu.

Woman In A Box 2 - The Final Word:

Woman In A Box 2 is a trip - a kinky, twisted and crazy tale of broken hearts and broken minds that is stylishly shot and very well put together. The DVD release from Impulse Pictures isn't going to win any awards for picture quality and the lack of extras is a disappointment but fans of the genre will be thankful for, at the very least, a watchable, English friendly edition of the picture.