Initially a cheap raunchy flick, The Glamorous Life of Shachiko Hanai is gathering good press from around the network of japanese film buffs.
I remember seeing a mention of the movie in midnight eye and unsurprisingly it made the best of the year list of Eye writer Jasper Sharp.
It’s has been recently showed at the raindance festival where a guy from twitch saw it and is providing a review.
The Glamourous Life of Sachiko Hanai is actually a director’s cut of a movie named “Horny Home Tutor: Teacher’s Love Juice”.
After being shot in the head, a call-girl realise that she has become a kind of genius capable of absorbing any piece of knowledge that comes across. At the same time she mysteriously end up in possession of a replica of George W. Bush finger giving her the potential power of launching a nuclear attack.
Yep, yet again another super wacky japanese flick is gaining hype in various festival. What sets The Glamorous Life…” a part is its clear pinku eiga origins.
That reminds me of director Tastsumi Kumashiro that was rediscovered at the end of the 90’s. Kumashiro was from the generation of the japanese new wave and most of his movies were set in the Roman Porno genre of the 70’s. While clearly fullfiling his duty to the codes of the genre, he also was tremendously modern for the time, creating post-modern softcore flicks that are to be seen to be believed.
He basically went under the radar of most critics at the time because of the poor reputation of the Roman Porno flicks. Much like Seijun Suzuki he ended up being rediscovered later when he was given a retrospective that toured around the globe at the end of the 90’s.
Kumashiro is not the first example either. In the 60’s Bergman ’s Monika was showned only in small adult film theatre in Paris where the guys that would form the french new wave discovered the movie and held it as a masterpiece of modern filmaking.
Is Mitsuru Meike (The Life’s director) destined to a similar fate is a guess i won’t take.
Heres the trailer(.asx), and here’s the one page official website.

I’m a bit late that’s true. The fact is there’s plenty of info already available on Takeshis. Everyone was disapointed by it, even Kitano.
I haven’t seen it so i can’t really pronounce myself can i. Still i’m rejoicing of seeing Kitano trying lots of different stuff lately rather than sticking to the melancolic yakuza flicks that made him a japanese movie diva.
That’s a japanese thing, most succesful filmakers have huge filmos here compared to western directors. I mean you know that Miike is not trying to make a masterpiece with every movie he directs. But the fact that he does about 2, 3 movies a year allows him to experiment on different genre and format.
Kitano has been doing the same on a smaller scale lately, from ambitious drama (Dolls) to pure genre remaking (Zatoichi). Takeshis seems a part of that.
So Takeshis is the story of a very popular actor(Kitano) that wonders what his life would be if he was a different person.
It looks kind of crazy and schizophrenic like Kitano’s own career.
The official site is here and the trailer is embeded in flash so you’ll have to find it by yourself.