Broadcast Girl (2008) is a SOV pinku film directed by Takayuki Tamura. Tamura’s career as a filmmaker has focused exclusively on this erotic genre without any sense of strong stylization or flare. For the most part Broadcast Girl plays like a melodrama into which prolonged scenes of simulated sex have been inserted. The most compelling aspect of this low budget affair is in the dichotomy of its narrative structure.
The first half of Broadcast Girl focuses on Aya Hirai’s (Sonohara Rika) rise to the position of lead anchor of a news program, usurping Yuko Fugisaki (veteran pinku star Hanazawa Lemon). The second half of Broadcast Girl tells Yuko’s story; her rise and fall as lead anchor. These two episodes, taken together, form a kind of narrative circuit in which one woman’s journey essentially completes the other.
There’s something cyclical about the dual structure of Broadcast Girl. Perhaps this has more to do with the similarities between the experiences of these two women than with the formal structure of the film. Intentionally or not, Broadcast Girl examines the systemically hostile work place environment. Both women are abused and assaulted as part of their rise to top anchor. While the film does little to comment upon or analyze these issues the very act of raising them helps make Broadcast Girl more dramatically compelling and politically relevant.
None of this is meant to suggest that Broadcast Girl is some “lost” cinematic gem or overlooked piece of genre filmmaking. Broadcast Girl is a relatively competent piece of micro budget filmmaking. Anything about Broadcast Girl that is of note hardly appears to have been premeditated or considered by the filmmakers. Really I only feel comfortable recommending this film to the most committed pinku film devotees.
