True Story of a Woman In Jail: Sex Hell (1975)

aka Jitsuroku Onna Kanbetsusho: Sei-Jigoku
Studio: Impulse Pictures
Theatrical Release: March 5th, 1975
DVD Release: April 10th, 2012
Rating: Unrated!
Directed By Kôyû Ohara
Review By Craig Sorensen




Now this is more like it!  This is what I was craving from the Roman Porno Collection (Roman Porno is actually short for romantic pornography so you’re not going to get fucking centurions).  This film is framed by a woman peeing in an open field.  And it’s not just a woman squatting in some grass, oh no, you get a full on stream shooting out from between her legs.  This being Japan you aren’t going to get a frontal crotch shot but still, it’s fairly graphic.  It’s also fucking hilarious and perfectly sets the ridiculous and exploitive mood.

A lot of action in this revolves around toilets for some reason.  Smuggled cigarettes must be smoked into the toilets so the guards can’t smell them.  There are at least two scenes of girls squatting over toilets and grunting (one faked, the other I don’t know what was going on).  There is a lot of graphic peeing in this.  One of the girls is peed on in her sleep and she licks her lips.  I don’t get any of this really.  Is it supposed to be sexy?  I know it’s not doing anything for me.  It seems awfully specific for a film.  I’m used to sex films kind of throwing a wide net, trying to grab the largest audience as possible.  And you do that by filming the most vanilla sex as possible.  The most kink you will get is maybe a lesbian scene (shot in soft focus with candles).  It just seems to me that the pee and poop crowd is a fairly small minority.  Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe it’s a big thing in Japanese culture.  Anyway, if peeing doesn’t turn you on, there are a couple of hot lesbian scenes to satiate your lust.

Now, if someone were to hand me a DVD and tell me “Hey, watch this movie!  It’s about some girls in juvenile hall who pee all over the place”, I’d be a little hesitant.  Thankfully this is Japanese and, in my experience, no matter how ridiculous, sleazy and repugnant the subject matter, the Japanese filmmakers will give it their all.  The film has great cinematography from Yonezo Maeda so with that alone it’s head and shoulders above most other countries genre fare.  You also get a great soundtrack from extremely ‘70s sounding Downtown Boogie Woogie Band.  All the girls in the cast do an admirable job considering the subject matter.  Director Ohara keeps things moving very quickly so what rough patches there are don’t hang around too long.  The film is only 72 minutes for fuck’s sake so it certainly doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.  I had a lot of fun with this movie and it definitely makes me look forward to more in the Nikkatsu films collection.

Sex Hell looks pretty damn good on DVD from Impulse Pictures.  The print used looks like it was in very good shape as damage and dirt are pretty much nonexistent.  Colors are strong here and flesh tones (which are important when you’re in Sex Hell) look very natural.  The film is presented in it’s original 2.35:1 and, of course, it’s anamorphic.  Everything looks very good.  The only audio option is the original Japanese mono track.  It sounds good to me.  It’s not extraordinary but it certainly gets the job done.  You also get some easy to read English subtitles.  My only problem with that is that text isn’t translated.  There isn’t much of it but it’s kind of a pet peeve when a newspaper or a sign shows up prominently on screen and I can’t tell what the hell it’s supposed to say.  But that’s a minor gripe.  You don’t get any extras with this disc other than a nice essay inside the cover by Jasper Sharp and a reproduction of the original poster art.