Tag: Toei
Despite other studios seeing success with their own manga adaptations, Toei had always been hesitant when taking such a leap. That all changed in 1972 with Toru Shinohara’s Female Prisoner Scorpion. With its action and grit honed by one of the upcoming masters of action manga, complemented by director Shunya Ito‘s own political and avant-garde
Back in the 1970s, the names of Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto were on everyone’s lips. Hailed as the “queens of porno”, they not only became exploitation cinema royalty but burst through into mainstream pop culture. If you bought any random issue of Heibon Punch, Weekly Playboy, or one of the countless other men’s magazines
When Toei’s pinky violence line first appeared in 1970 it was an unstoppable force, and throughout the early 70s, it showed little signs of slowing down. 1973 in particular was a bumper year for pinky violence, with an excessive offering consisting of – two Girl Boss films, three Terrifying Girls’ High School films, two Female
When Toei’s flagship TV series Playgirl hit its 200th episode, a special event was planned to celebrate. Bringing their big screen output into the mix, Toei devised a crossover with one of their hottest film series – the Girl Boss pinky violence films. By 1973 pinky violence had hit its peak and was one of
The term pinky violence is a retroactive term used to collectively refer to Toei’s various films of the early 70’s focused on sukebans, girl gangs and bad girls in general. Initially sparked as a reaction to the girl gang films of their rivals Nikkatsu and Daiei, pinky violence films soon took on a life of
To call “Dirty Harry” ground-breaking would be an understatement. In 1972, it completely revolutionised urban crime dramas with its gritty – almost giallo – cinematography, focus on shocking crime and of course Clint Eastwood’s now legendary protagonist. The rulebooks were torn up and decency disregarded as the film focused on the villain Scorpio committing seemingly
After Purima Kikaku’s success with their three “Document Porno: Sukeban” films they would move onto a new format for their next attempt at the sukeban genre – the “semi-document”. Whereas the document porno films would portray the action as a mockumentary accompanied by a narrator to sell the illusion of reality; “Semi-Document: Sukeban Bodyguard” would
After helping to kickstart sukeban cinema in 1970, Nikkatsu would largely retire from the genre in 1971 after the lacklustre performance of “Bad Girl Mako”, leaving Toei unchallenged in their pinky violence dominance. However, in 1973, a fresh entry would come courtesy of the small studio Purima Kikaku. Purima Kikaku would exclusively make low-budget porn
The genre, now referred to as “Pinky Violence”, would absolutely dominate cinema in the early 70’s, which was largely helmed by Toei in their focused attempt to pump out many popular films to quickly and cheaply as possible to meet their quota of two new films every fortnight in order to obtain exclusivity contracts with
Though you won’t see him appear in the cinematic universe anytime soon, many may not be aware that Dracula is a Marvel character. Being the star of his own comic book series developed by the comic behemoth, Tomb Of Dracula in the early 1970s, the comic is where the character of Blade made his debut