Skin Of Roses (1978) is that classic kind of pinku film. It’s erotic and brazenly violent while also being beautifully photographed and well acted. Director Katsuhiko Fujii is best known for Nun In Rope Hell (1985) though he managed to direct more than two dozen pinku films, including Skin Of Roses. Fujii’s experience in the genre shows in his inventive use of camera placement, particularly during scenes of intercourse.
Naomi Tani plays Ritsuko, a hostess forced to perform in a sex show by her imprisoned husband’s yakuza boss. When the yakuza sell Ritsuko’s debt to a powerful lawyer, Ryuji (Yoshihiro Hidaka) helps her blackmail the lawyer. With freedom in their grasp a single betrayal undoes all of Ritsuko’s hard work and sacrafice.
Skin Of Roses combines elements of the “fallen woman” and yakuza dramas together pretty seamlessly. Fujii’s good at matching similar dramatic beats from both genres so that they feel syncopated; one the natural outgrowth of the other. Tani’s performance as Ritsuko also adds credibility to the drama in Skin Of Roses.
But Skin Of Roses is still a pinku film. In the same way that Skin Of Roses mixes the “fallen woman” and yakuza drama genres together, the film, on an act by act basis, approaches different kinds of erotica in different ways. In the first act Fujii is really interested in reflecting the audience’s voyeurism within the film itself during Ritsuko’s erotic performances. In the second act Skin Of Roses looks at different forms of domination and submission. Then in the final act Fujii gets into the bondage spectacles that he excels at.
Generally speaking all of the sex in Skin Of Roses is pretty tame. The harder “torture” kinks at the conclusion of the film are only exploitative because that’s how they are rendered to serve the dramatic arc of the narrative. What is actually seen is far less than one would assume. Skin Of Roses operates on the assumption that the viewer will have conflicting feelings about bondage and torture play. On the one hand Skin Of Roses assumes the viewer will see all kinks as the providence of the yakuza villains, while on the other hand Fujii wants the viewer to get-off to Naomi Tani’s torture.
Beneath the pornographic veneer of Skin Of Roses is a visual element that Fujii incorporates that has the effect of giving the film a duality. Though Skin Of Roses focuses almost exclusively on spectacles of yakuza violence and sex, there are moments where urban life in Japan can be glimpsed just as it is. Fujii holds a handful of exterior shots for a just a beat too long. In these fleeting moments the mise-en-scène comes into the forefront and the commonplace juxtaposes Fujii’s pulpy fantasia.
