BEAUTIFUL PREY (1996) AKA: XX: Utsukushiki Emono. Butchy-pretty, sexually naive cop Noriko (Makiko Watanabe) falls under the spell of the rape victim Yu (Kei Marimura), a disaffected masochist who slowly knocks down her inhibitions while simultaneously turning her partner into a willing sadist.
Meanwhile, the original rapist is still on the loose, but does Yu really want him brought to justice or is she setting Noriko up as the next victim? Noirish pink movie from director Toshiharu Ikeda, he of the overrated EVIL DEAD TRAP, like so many others, offers a curious insight into the darker side of the Japanese sexual psyche, albeit not an overly deep one. The sex scenes are standard no-pubes nipple/navel/leg expeditions with crops and chains thrown in for good measure, but it all plays rather perfunctorily and, since it's a Japanese movie, you just know everybody's gonna turn out to be firing on deep-seated sexual repression. Decently made, one supposes, and hardly the nastiest such film to come from this arena of Japanese film-making, but probably worth seeing only if you haven't seen others like it, just so you can say you did. I give it a 5.
Meanwhile, the original rapist is still on the loose, but does Yu really want him brought to justice or is she setting Noriko up as the next victim? Noirish pink movie from director Toshiharu Ikeda, he of the overrated EVIL DEAD TRAP, like so many others, offers a curious insight into the darker side of the Japanese sexual psyche, albeit not an overly deep one. The sex scenes are standard no-pubes nipple/navel/leg expeditions with crops and chains thrown in for good measure, but it all plays rather perfunctorily and, since it's a Japanese movie, you just know everybody's gonna turn out to be firing on deep-seated sexual repression. Decently made, one supposes, and hardly the nastiest such film to come from this arena of Japanese film-making, but probably worth seeing only if you haven't seen others like it, just so you can say you did. I give it a 5.