Akai Boko (1980)

Genres - Adult, Drama, Music  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Robert Firsching

This outstanding softcore melodrama from respected Nikkatsu filmmaker Chusei Sone is one of the director's and the pinku eiga genre's very best. By this point in his career, Sone was desperate to break free of the numbingly repetitive Nikkatsu plot lines, but rather than tamper with his meal ticket he chose to make the very best films he could within the studio's rigidly structured formula system. Here, he has taken the same juvenile delinquency film that the company had been cranking out since the 1960s and turned it into a surprisingly perceptive social statement. Japanese rock singer Yuya Uchida stars as, not surprisingly, a rock singer named Yuya. He sleeps with a groupie named Megumi (Megumi Saki) after a concert, and she turns out to have been a virgin. This revelation somehow touches Yuya and changes his entire outlook on women and relationships. The rest of his band laughs at him for giving up the traditional rock & roll "hump 'em and dump 'em" ethos, but Yuya decides to enter a committed, monogamous relationship with Megumi and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, as always happens in films like this, fate has other plans. Regardless of the plot specifics, Sone's tone and presentation set Akai Boko apart from dozens of similar efforts and it remains one of his most memorable films.