Koji Wakamtsu's "Go,Go Second Time Virgin" is a classic pinku eiga film.Wakamatsu was raised to be a farmer but made his move to the big city and tried his hand at being a gangster and a convict before he found his true calling as Japan's most notorious experimental movie director,who made over 30 films between 1963 and 1974,many of them too raw and disturbing to be shown in theaters but acclaimed at fine-film festivals."Go,Go Second Time Virgin" tells the story of of Poppo(Mimi Kozakura),a young girl raped(for the second time in her young life)by a gang of street ruffians one August night in Tokyo.Left bleeding on a rooftop,she survives the night and meets Tsukio(Michio Akiyama),a fellow teenager with problems of his own.Together they explore the darker side of life and sex,with Poppo's suicidal obsessions matching similar threads in Tsukio's unsuccessfully published book of poetry.The joy they find in each other inflames their rage at the unjust world around them,and their love engenders a tragic killing spree."Go,Go Second Time Virgin" is a beautifully shot film and the cinematography is brilliant.Most of the film is in gorgeous black-and-white,with a few tinted sequences and a full-color flashback to Tsukio's unfortunate orgy experience.So if you are a fan of Japanese art-house exploitation give this one a look.8 out of 10.
18 Reviews
Amazingly bleak film, and quite shocking to watch
devil.plaything26 November 2001
GO, GO, SECOND-TIME VIRGIN! (1969): First things first - quite possibly the best name for a movie ever! A strangely jaunty, optimistic sounding title for such a grim and nihilistic movie though.
"If you tell me why you want to die, then I'll kill you"
"Really?" "Yes?" "It's because I'm so hopelessly unhappy in this life"
(Bit of a rough quote there I'm afraid). GGSTV! opens with a 17 year old girl being dragged to a rooftop and raped by a gang of thugs, whilst a boy of a similar age watches on expressionless. The sun rises the next day to find boy and girl still in the same positions, sat in silence until the girl rises and wishes him "Good morning". Awkward conversation arises, and the girl reveals that this is the second time she's been raped. She is surprised to find that she has bled this time too (hence the title, which is actually a line from a song she sings to herself). The conversation progresses little better when she asks the boy to kill him. Throughout the course of the day, the boy lets her into his own life a little, which we find to be at least as f***ed up as hers. I don't know what it is about the Japanese, but they seem to have a knack of producing the strangest and most disturbed movies in the world. Takashi Miike might be shocking audiences and provoking walk outs now, but 32 years ago Koji Wakamatsu was producing movies that were at least as dysfunctional and disturbing. Whilst the west was having flower power and free love, Japan appears to have had quite a different approach to the hippy movement (though this may not be an entirely representative sample!). If GGSTV! were to be made now, it could only be a student film, and it would be largely criticised for its naivety, probably accused of being self-indulgent. And for having some truly awful acting. But movies in general were different in 1969, and GGSTV! was certainly a pioneering film and seemingly quite sincere in its bleak world view. It feels in many ways more 'film' like than most movies today... the cinematography is all very photographic, and the way the interesting soundtrack is blended with the movie - definitely 'cinema as art'. I'm not going to suggest it's a great movie, but it is fascinating and provocative, and deeply bleak and depressing, so that might appeal to some .
"If you tell me why you want to die, then I'll kill you"
"Really?" "Yes?" "It's because I'm so hopelessly unhappy in this life"
(Bit of a rough quote there I'm afraid). GGSTV! opens with a 17 year old girl being dragged to a rooftop and raped by a gang of thugs, whilst a boy of a similar age watches on expressionless. The sun rises the next day to find boy and girl still in the same positions, sat in silence until the girl rises and wishes him "Good morning". Awkward conversation arises, and the girl reveals that this is the second time she's been raped. She is surprised to find that she has bled this time too (hence the title, which is actually a line from a song she sings to herself). The conversation progresses little better when she asks the boy to kill him. Throughout the course of the day, the boy lets her into his own life a little, which we find to be at least as f***ed up as hers. I don't know what it is about the Japanese, but they seem to have a knack of producing the strangest and most disturbed movies in the world. Takashi Miike might be shocking audiences and provoking walk outs now, but 32 years ago Koji Wakamatsu was producing movies that were at least as dysfunctional and disturbing. Whilst the west was having flower power and free love, Japan appears to have had quite a different approach to the hippy movement (though this may not be an entirely representative sample!). If GGSTV! were to be made now, it could only be a student film, and it would be largely criticised for its naivety, probably accused of being self-indulgent. And for having some truly awful acting. But movies in general were different in 1969, and GGSTV! was certainly a pioneering film and seemingly quite sincere in its bleak world view. It feels in many ways more 'film' like than most movies today... the cinematography is all very photographic, and the way the interesting soundtrack is blended with the movie - definitely 'cinema as art'. I'm not going to suggest it's a great movie, but it is fascinating and provocative, and deeply bleak and depressing, so that might appeal to some .
Bleak "Day In The Life" Of Two Japanese Teenagers...
EVOL66625 June 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Koji Wakamatsu's GO, GO SECOND TIME VIRGIN is a dark tale of rape, revenge, teen-angst, depression, and feelings of solitude. This is a strong film showing the inner-turmoil of two teenagers who've each had a rough life.
Tsukio follows after a gang of guys who take a young girl to a rooftop to rape her. He stands by and watches, and stays on the roof until the girl wakes up the next morning. They start a sort of "friendship" based on their mutual depression and angst at the world. Poppo (the rapee) constantly asks Tsukio to kill her, and Tsukio constantly refuses. They eventually take revenge against the gang that raped her, and decide to take their own "destinies" into their own hands...
Much like Wakamatsu's earlier film, THE EMBRYO HUNTS IN SECRET - G,GSTV is a pretty bleak film punctuated with poetic and strangely beautiful moments. There are a few rape scenes and a little bit of splatter for the sleaze-heads out there (of which I am proudly one...) but this is not an overtly sleazy film. This film is more of a tragic chronicalling of two desperate, lonely, and hopeless individuals. Though G,GSTV has some pinky-style elements, those hoping for either a fun pinky film, or a twisted violent-pink style film will be disappointed. Others that go into this one knowing that it's more "serious" than the typical pinky-type entries will probably enjoy it...7.5/10
Tsukio follows after a gang of guys who take a young girl to a rooftop to rape her. He stands by and watches, and stays on the roof until the girl wakes up the next morning. They start a sort of "friendship" based on their mutual depression and angst at the world. Poppo (the rapee) constantly asks Tsukio to kill her, and Tsukio constantly refuses. They eventually take revenge against the gang that raped her, and decide to take their own "destinies" into their own hands...
Much like Wakamatsu's earlier film, THE EMBRYO HUNTS IN SECRET - G,GSTV is a pretty bleak film punctuated with poetic and strangely beautiful moments. There are a few rape scenes and a little bit of splatter for the sleaze-heads out there (of which I am proudly one...) but this is not an overtly sleazy film. This film is more of a tragic chronicalling of two desperate, lonely, and hopeless individuals. Though G,GSTV has some pinky-style elements, those hoping for either a fun pinky film, or a twisted violent-pink style film will be disappointed. Others that go into this one knowing that it's more "serious" than the typical pinky-type entries will probably enjoy it...7.5/10
A compelling underground masterpiece.
libertyvalance21 April 2001
Given that we are dealing with a no budget production shot in a couple of days on top of a roof, the result is astonishing. Koji Wakamatsu has a visual style that outdoes any avantgarde director/photographer with a bigger name. In beautifully shot black and white with some gory color sequences this film takes you on a compelling, nihilistic trip through the claustrophobic existence of two teenagers living on the edge of society. The extreme violence is sometimes lightened by unexpected moments of haunting, morbid poetry. Always true to the characters he has created, Wakamatsu finds beauty where others would only seek for sleaze. This underground masterpiece transcends its humble beginnings and can easily stand comparison with the works of Nagisha Oshima and Seijun Suzuki.
Helter Skelter
tedg24 August 2007
Warning: Spoilers
How do you watch an old movie?
Until recently, when video rentals and media sales allowed films to have persistent markets, movies were set in their context. Movies were made, the commercial ones, to last a few weeks and perhaps make some money. Then, the film would be recycled, the messages lost and the material reused.
Few of the creators had any notion that someone would be watching in 40 years, or even 400.
Now as it happens, I was watching films when this was made, so even though I'm coming to it out of its context, I do know the Manson murders and some notion of where Japanese film and society were. But the truth is that I cannot connect with this the way the filmmaker intended; I'm just too far removed in time and culture.
I can guess from the outside: the nudity would have been shocking in the time and place; the dramatic devices more effective. The depiction of society as fundamentally damaged is universal and reachable but not through the vehicles used here: the Japanese obsessions with virginal sex; the particular abstractions of Japanese comics; the Japanese tradition of suicide, essentially religious; the Japanese tradition of ritualized stage drama the role that filmmakers played in Japanese society as challengers of culture that has no counterpart in the west.And then there's the dark side of zen, that violence heals.
So how do I watch this? Do I pretend I am the intended audience? I do that for some films, and in some cases where it is a film I have seen, I recapture that prior self as well as the filmmaker's intended effect. And if I am pretending, do I go as far as pretend to be the audience the filmmaker is criticizing instead of being on the filmmaker's side?
Do I watch it for historical value, looking for its place in the development of films that do affect me directly today? That's easy enough, given the importance of Kurosawa to me, based on a connection that largely transcends context. But it seems a lot of layers to go through for something that was meant so simply.
The story here is of a girl who defines herself as a virgin because she bleeds when gangraped. We learn that she imagines a previous gangrape but in fact she has been serially abused by her father, making both parents suicide. There's a celebration of the sometimes warm, sometimes cold concrete on which this blood is displayed. A boy provides an on screen watcher, intended to be ourselves, folded into the story. He and the imputed we have tremendous problems with sex, alternately hot and cold. Violent or adverse. We kill everyone we see, something underscored by photographs of a filmmaker (Polanski) and murdered wife (Sharon Tate).
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
Until recently, when video rentals and media sales allowed films to have persistent markets, movies were set in their context. Movies were made, the commercial ones, to last a few weeks and perhaps make some money. Then, the film would be recycled, the messages lost and the material reused.
Few of the creators had any notion that someone would be watching in 40 years, or even 400.
Now as it happens, I was watching films when this was made, so even though I'm coming to it out of its context, I do know the Manson murders and some notion of where Japanese film and society were. But the truth is that I cannot connect with this the way the filmmaker intended; I'm just too far removed in time and culture.
I can guess from the outside: the nudity would have been shocking in the time and place; the dramatic devices more effective. The depiction of society as fundamentally damaged is universal and reachable but not through the vehicles used here: the Japanese obsessions with virginal sex; the particular abstractions of Japanese comics; the Japanese tradition of suicide, essentially religious; the Japanese tradition of ritualized stage drama the role that filmmakers played in Japanese society as challengers of culture that has no counterpart in the west.And then there's the dark side of zen, that violence heals.
So how do I watch this? Do I pretend I am the intended audience? I do that for some films, and in some cases where it is a film I have seen, I recapture that prior self as well as the filmmaker's intended effect. And if I am pretending, do I go as far as pretend to be the audience the filmmaker is criticizing instead of being on the filmmaker's side?
Do I watch it for historical value, looking for its place in the development of films that do affect me directly today? That's easy enough, given the importance of Kurosawa to me, based on a connection that largely transcends context. But it seems a lot of layers to go through for something that was meant so simply.
The story here is of a girl who defines herself as a virgin because she bleeds when gangraped. We learn that she imagines a previous gangrape but in fact she has been serially abused by her father, making both parents suicide. There's a celebration of the sometimes warm, sometimes cold concrete on which this blood is displayed. A boy provides an on screen watcher, intended to be ourselves, folded into the story. He and the imputed we have tremendous problems with sex, alternately hot and cold. Violent or adverse. We kill everyone we see, something underscored by photographs of a filmmaker (Polanski) and murdered wife (Sharon Tate).
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
Surreal and bleak
The_Void21 January 2008
As other reviewers have mentioned, it's difficult to know what to make of this film - and I suffered from the same problem! Go Go Second Time Virgin is as surreal and strange as its title suggests it is. The basis behind the plot is relatively simple, but I have no idea what the film is trying to say and that's what enforces the weirdness of the film. Go Go Second Tim Virgin starts with a rape sequence and from there we focus on two teenagers; one of which being the girl that was raped. The pair of them are depressed, and the girl insists that she wants to die and asks the boy to do it, but he refuses, preferring a different solution to the problem. The film is stylishly shot; most of it is in black and white although certain sequences are portrayed in colour. The bleak atmosphere is the main point of the film; this film is extremely bleak throughout and not a great deal of fun, which might not please anyone going into this film expecting something more fun, considering the film's 'pinku' origins. There's not a great deal of sleaze in the film - the rape scenes are not overly graphic and there's not a great deal of gore either. I won't name this film as a favourite or anything like that, but it's an interesting little flick that is definitely worth seeing, and therefore comes recommended.
I heard the title a long time ago. How can you forget it?
zetes14 November 2003
This is one of the weirdest and most unique films I've ever seen. It's artsploitation, and like most artsploitation, its art is questionable. In the end, though, I judged that it was more art than exploitation. Others, and probably the majority, would probably feel the opposite. A shy young man follows a group of men who are dragging a woman up to his apartment building's roof. He watches quietly as they rape her. When she awakes in the morning, she asks him to kill her, for she's too unhappy to live. We discover that he himself is suicidal, and that he harbors a deep curiosity and fear around sex, which has lead him to murder before. It does cross the line several times, especially with a series of photos of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, among which is a picture of Tate's corpse, but there's a lot of interest to grab onto. If nothing else, the stark black and white cinematography is gorgeous, and director Wakamatsu's use of music is masterful. A trip some will definitely want to take, while others, and you probably know it already, should avoid. The director later went on to produce Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses, which, while certainly a good film, is far less daring and compelling as Go Go Second Time Virgin. 9/10.
GO, GO SECOND TIME VIRGIN (Koji Wakamatsu, 1969) **1/2
Bunuel197624 March 2006
Warning: Spoilers
This one presents an even more depressing (and pointless) concept than THE EMBRYO: the film is basically a series of gang-rapes committed on a young girl by a mixed group of wastrels on the roof of an apartment block, separated only by scenes in which the girl is befriended by an unwilling (and possibly impotent) hanger-on where they recite poetry and sing songs as a means of coping with their strange predicament! A couple of similarly violent reminiscences by each of these characters are effectively shown in color, as opposed to the stark monochrome photography of the main events. Despite the abundant nudity on display (the girl is naked for most of the film's running time), the end result is distinctly unerotic; not surprisingly or, perhaps inevitably, the story resolves itself with bloodshed as the gang is butchered with a knife by the enigmatic boy, after which he and the girl leap off the roof to their death!!
most bizare Japanese film Ive seen
bosscain6 June 2004
Ive seen alot of films from Japan and other countries. But this has got to be one of the most bizare,yet interesting films that has come out of japan in recent years. Its like a teen angst film gone awry. unlike American teen angst films were you just have a bunch of dialog and crying this one has action and visual imagery that follows the characters though out the whole film the combination of both color and black and white film is a rare treat indeed.
Mama, I'm Heading Off
Meganeguard9 September 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Go, Go Second Time Virgin opens with the gang rape of a seventeen year old girl by four men. With a slow Japanese acid rock tune playing in the background, the camera focuses on the face of the young girl while she is raped by each man. This scene then goes to a flashback in sepia tones in which the viewer witnesses the first time the girl was gang raped. Instead of fleeing the scene or calling the police, the girl remains on the rooftop and makes a shaky friendship with a boy, the son of the building's manager, who witnessed her rape. Spending their time on the rooftop, the boy and girl engage in a conversation which basically consists of the girl telling the boy that she wants him to kill her. However, the boy, of course, is reluctant to do so, but as time goes on the boy agrees to do so, and it seems that he might have some experience in the area of killing.
Go, Go Second Time Virgin is a bizarre film by a director who broke many filmic taboos and directed films such as Blood Red from the Sun, The Wet Flower's Budding Eye, and Flesh Target Escape in a time in which Japan was producing one pink film after another, so where Miike can be viewed promulgator of extreme violence in Japanese film of today, Wakamatsu was pushing the envelope of eroticism over forty years ago during a time in which censorship was much stronger. However, how does Go, Go Second Time Virgin rate as a film? Upon my first watching of the film it seemed nothing more than a way to display the naked body of its lead actress as much as possible and upon my second viewing of this film it seemed as if Wakamatsu was trying to create a film that not only had erotic aspirations but was also trying to push the pink film to a new level of artistry. For some it seems that this film did reach this goal and for others this film is nothing more than a big mess. However, for those who like the films of Suzuki Norifumi, the older films of Oshima Nagisa and Imamura Shohei, or maybe the fiction of Murakami Ryu Go, Go Second Time Virgin might be a good example of some of the sleazier films produced during the 1960s in Japan.
Go, Go Second Time Virgin is a bizarre film by a director who broke many filmic taboos and directed films such as Blood Red from the Sun, The Wet Flower's Budding Eye, and Flesh Target Escape in a time in which Japan was producing one pink film after another, so where Miike can be viewed promulgator of extreme violence in Japanese film of today, Wakamatsu was pushing the envelope of eroticism over forty years ago during a time in which censorship was much stronger. However, how does Go, Go Second Time Virgin rate as a film? Upon my first watching of the film it seemed nothing more than a way to display the naked body of its lead actress as much as possible and upon my second viewing of this film it seemed as if Wakamatsu was trying to create a film that not only had erotic aspirations but was also trying to push the pink film to a new level of artistry. For some it seems that this film did reach this goal and for others this film is nothing more than a big mess. However, for those who like the films of Suzuki Norifumi, the older films of Oshima Nagisa and Imamura Shohei, or maybe the fiction of Murakami Ryu Go, Go Second Time Virgin might be a good example of some of the sleazier films produced during the 1960s in Japan.
A violent bootleg Masterpiece about not losing purity dilemma
bix2nim30 August 2004
Not an easy and an art movie, Koji Wakamatsu's Go-Go Second Time Virgin' won't let you without a second see, because it's just amazing. But that's not all. There is a natural tendency of considering this movie as a far-eastern one and especially as a '60's -'70's one. More than that (can you imagine) Go-Go Second Time Virgin' is a strange and beautiful combination Bunuel-Resnais-Antonioni in a Japanese manner. It is true that the movie is violent, really violent, but physical violence is a indispensable element in Go-Go Second Time Virgin', especially when the same violence is not being followed for any single moment by Wakamatsu. The TITLE signifies purity, and in the beginning, a 17 years old girl is gang raped on a roof, while a boy is watching without participating. The boy remains there, right next to the raped girl till the morning, 8th of August, a warm and sunny one. The girl gets up and, even though she wasn't a virgin, she still bleeded after the rape. It was the second time she was raped, first time it happened on a beach, and from B/W, the image is now cyan. She bleeded for the second time, because she didn't lose her innocence, and directly comes the title, Go-Go Second Time Virgin'. For the same reason the movie is build' on and around a ROOF, with many WHITE SHEETS in the 8th of August morning scene. The girl is sad and she wants to die, and the boy, an anonymous poet, pretends that he does not understand why. We go down the roof in a flat where the image turns for the last time from B/W (not a coincidence) into colour, this time, and there is a murder scene with four bodies and a lot of blood. The victims have sexually molested the boy and he killed them for being pigs' and that's how ABUSE is introduced. From this moment 'till the end, the movie turns into a not losing purity dilemma, and the climax is the night i'm-gonna-kill-you-dance, all WHITE SHEETS are gone and a misty morning on the 9th of August. As for the set, the image and the shot, Tarkovsky's and Kieslowskyi's fans would be delighted seeing Go-Go Second Time Virgin' a '65 minutes everyday Masterpiece about trying, keeping and fighting for your own purity. The most violent non-violent film I've ever seen, simply BEAUTIFUL (8/10).
Intriguing and fresh
fertilecelluloid3 October 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Moody, original drama from rebel director Wakamatsu Koji. It takes place in one location and was shot over a four day period. It is incredibly effective as a character study and experiment in style. It is a mix of art-house and exploitation and it marries the two seamlessly.
A girl, who is tired of life, begs a shy, troubled geek to kill her. Delaying the granting of her wish, the geek forges a bond with the girl while dealing bloodily with several "problems" of his own.
Color cutaways are interspersed with the stark, beautifully composed, well shot monochrome footage. The soundtrack is minimal, the music sparingly employed at key moments.
Wakamatsu has an original, anti-establishment perspective that makes his more personal films very intriguing and fresh.
A girl, who is tired of life, begs a shy, troubled geek to kill her. Delaying the granting of her wish, the geek forges a bond with the girl while dealing bloodily with several "problems" of his own.
Color cutaways are interspersed with the stark, beautifully composed, well shot monochrome footage. The soundtrack is minimal, the music sparingly employed at key moments.
Wakamatsu has an original, anti-establishment perspective that makes his more personal films very intriguing and fresh.
"Let's stop playing with thinner!"
punishmentpark1 July 2015
Warning: Spoilers
A rape and revenge movie that leaves the beaten path far behind, but there was no 'beaten path' in 1969, was there? So, was this the first rape and revenge movie? If it was, then it has its own added set of rules.
Main characters Tsukio ('boy') and Poppo ('girl') have charm and charisma in spades, which can be crucial in any kind of exploitation film. The (minimal) references to the Sharon Tate murders (via comics) and sniffing thinner feel somewhat comical, though they must have been big issues in those days. I read elsewhere that this is supposed to be artsploitation - it is the first time I ever read that term, but it's not very useful to me.
The story and execution (pun intended? sure, if you want to) are way over the top, but through the eyes of both Tsukio and Poppo, not all that far-fetched. Two outsiders, who are pretty much pushed into taking extreme measures against the forces of evil that have invaded their lives. It is the end of an era in which pretty anything goes, but that never happens without consequences.
This is a crazy, bloody, poetic, musical, haphazard trip taking place in, on and around an apartment building somewhere in (I assume) Tokyo mostly in black and white, and it might not be for everyone...
10 out of 10 because 'Yuke yuke nidome no shojo' just does nothing wrong (well, if you want to split hairs: near the end I saw the shadows of the camera and crew a couple of times and the beach scene had a continuity goof in it).
Main characters Tsukio ('boy') and Poppo ('girl') have charm and charisma in spades, which can be crucial in any kind of exploitation film. The (minimal) references to the Sharon Tate murders (via comics) and sniffing thinner feel somewhat comical, though they must have been big issues in those days. I read elsewhere that this is supposed to be artsploitation - it is the first time I ever read that term, but it's not very useful to me.
The story and execution (pun intended? sure, if you want to) are way over the top, but through the eyes of both Tsukio and Poppo, not all that far-fetched. Two outsiders, who are pretty much pushed into taking extreme measures against the forces of evil that have invaded their lives. It is the end of an era in which pretty anything goes, but that never happens without consequences.
This is a crazy, bloody, poetic, musical, haphazard trip taking place in, on and around an apartment building somewhere in (I assume) Tokyo mostly in black and white, and it might not be for everyone...
10 out of 10 because 'Yuke yuke nidome no shojo' just does nothing wrong (well, if you want to split hairs: near the end I saw the shadows of the camera and crew a couple of times and the beach scene had a continuity goof in it).
Go, Go, Second Time Virgin (1969)
mevmijaumau16 March 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Koji Wakamatsu is a strange dude; he was raised a farmer, but became a low-level gangster after hitting the town due to getting expelled from school for fighting. He worked for an organized crime gang which collected payments from film crews and got himself in prison for six months, where he was tormented by guards, fueling his distrust of authority. He then made a ton of pinku (soft porn) films. His other exploits include getting high with Yoko Ono in a hotel room, getting banned from entering the USA because of radical political affiliations in his youth, producing Nagisa Oshima's controversial pinku film In the Realm of the Senses and, according to some rumors, even sending his daughters to a Palestine army camp to teach them discipline.
Take everything written above, and take the title "Go, Go, Second Time Virgin" and just try to visualize what sort of a film this is. And the final result, surprising no one, is weird as sh*t. A pinku Japanese New Wave exploitation art-house film shot on a shoestring budget in foru days, resorting to a single location like in other Wakamatsu films, in this case a building rooftop. In the end - the movie is very nihilistic - you can't escape the rooftop and its wickedness, and the only way out is jumping off of it to your death.
The title of the film is taken from one of the poems the heroine recites, and is a reference to how she bled after getting raped on the roof even if it weren't her first time. For visual accompaniment, Wakamatsu focuses on white hanging sheets which disappear after the opening scene. The film's bleak B&W look is also sometimes interrupted by a cyan-tinted flashbacks and, later, a full color violent flashback which manages to be incredibly unsettling despite the extra-fake blood effects and the amateurish acting.
It's a short watch, spanning just over an hour in typical pinku fashion, but I'd say every minute of it is well-spent even if I have trouble understanding it. It relies on poetry and jazz songs to give the story more depth, although Wakamatsu's intent is never made clear, right to the very end where the camera focuses on an children-aimed ad advertising not to sniff thinner. There's also a scene where the titular girl, Poppo, speaks to the camera and yells "Fuck you!" after confessing that neither her nor her mother felt any pleasure while getting raped. The scene has been read as Wakamatsu's attack on conventional plot points concerning rape in pinku films.
One oddity in particular concerning this films is that it's tied to the Manson Family murders. Apparently, Wakamatsu based his '60s scripts on actual crime events. This movie for example ends with a quick-cut collage of violent manga extracts and pictures of Roman Polanski and his murdered wife Sharon Tate. The film begins on August 8th, the same day as the Tate murders, and 3 women and 4 men are killed in the movie (same number as the Tate-LaBianca killings).
And you know what else? This movie is really good. Although I have no idea what it's trying to say, and several sequences were extremely unpleasant to sit through (it's the intent, but still), the atmosphere was just amazing. The combination of excellent jazz music and the dark, cold rooftop location was spot on. It may not be an enjoyable watch, but holy hell is it memorable.
Take everything written above, and take the title "Go, Go, Second Time Virgin" and just try to visualize what sort of a film this is. And the final result, surprising no one, is weird as sh*t. A pinku Japanese New Wave exploitation art-house film shot on a shoestring budget in foru days, resorting to a single location like in other Wakamatsu films, in this case a building rooftop. In the end - the movie is very nihilistic - you can't escape the rooftop and its wickedness, and the only way out is jumping off of it to your death.
The title of the film is taken from one of the poems the heroine recites, and is a reference to how she bled after getting raped on the roof even if it weren't her first time. For visual accompaniment, Wakamatsu focuses on white hanging sheets which disappear after the opening scene. The film's bleak B&W look is also sometimes interrupted by a cyan-tinted flashbacks and, later, a full color violent flashback which manages to be incredibly unsettling despite the extra-fake blood effects and the amateurish acting.
It's a short watch, spanning just over an hour in typical pinku fashion, but I'd say every minute of it is well-spent even if I have trouble understanding it. It relies on poetry and jazz songs to give the story more depth, although Wakamatsu's intent is never made clear, right to the very end where the camera focuses on an children-aimed ad advertising not to sniff thinner. There's also a scene where the titular girl, Poppo, speaks to the camera and yells "Fuck you!" after confessing that neither her nor her mother felt any pleasure while getting raped. The scene has been read as Wakamatsu's attack on conventional plot points concerning rape in pinku films.
One oddity in particular concerning this films is that it's tied to the Manson Family murders. Apparently, Wakamatsu based his '60s scripts on actual crime events. This movie for example ends with a quick-cut collage of violent manga extracts and pictures of Roman Polanski and his murdered wife Sharon Tate. The film begins on August 8th, the same day as the Tate murders, and 3 women and 4 men are killed in the movie (same number as the Tate-LaBianca killings).
And you know what else? This movie is really good. Although I have no idea what it's trying to say, and several sequences were extremely unpleasant to sit through (it's the intent, but still), the atmosphere was just amazing. The combination of excellent jazz music and the dark, cold rooftop location was spot on. It may not be an enjoyable watch, but holy hell is it memorable.
Incredibly bleak pink film
Falconeer28 September 2012
I remember finally getting to see "Assault: Jack the Ripper" after hearing about how brutal it was. Personally i find "Second Time Virgin" more disturbing though. Very minimalist film, almost entirely shot on a grimy rooftop, where a young woman gets raped repeatedly, mostly because after the first rape, she decides to STAY on the roof, to wait for someone to kill her or rape her again! She meets a young, shy man who is harboring an incredibly morbid, violent secret. The two depressed, death-obsessed teens find solace in each other, and form a kind of bond against their brutal surroundings. Effectively filmed in black and white, with some jarring color flashback scenes, this film can really get under the skin. Many people die, and the casual way the deaths are filmed makes for a surreal and unpleasant mood. Worth mentioning too is the sultry, moody jazz soundtrack that is featured. Recommended for all those obsessed with rape and murder.
Excellent bleak pinku drama
Bloodwank12 August 2011
Girl, unwilling, borne upstairs on shoulders of rampant youth. Rooftop rape. Close ups. Porcelain white face melts to blue reminiscence. Seashore rape. Need for death, need to be killed. And so it goes, still camera and long takes, repetitious dialogue and pretentious poetry, the slow unfolding of terminal youth, sorry isolated kids playing out sex and death on what might as well be the roof of the world. Referred to in the credits simply as girl and boy, Poppio and Tsukio find their obsessions entwine, find tenderness amidst cruelty but best of all for the viewer find expression as remarkably credible characters. Films dealing with the darker side of youth seem eternally prone to sensationalism and that is present here, but for all the exploitation gears that this film moves through the characters are authentic, their inescapable thoughts, the bindings of determination, of society, of their own desperation, all is real, bleak to a wrenching degree but always unsettlingly real. Both leads are outstanding, Mimi Kozakura harrowing in her determination for release, Michio Akiyama dead eyed and impassive, at first a strange presence he slowly endears himself through chemistry before the film shifts to darkest realms. Sublime largely black and white cinematography from Hideo Itoh stylises but also brings out every detail in bright relief, perfect complement to the generally sedate shooting style. Similarly apt is the score from Meikyu Sekai, heavy on subdued guitar, sweetly drawing out deep sadness in gentle moments. Director Koji Wakamatsu demonstrates mastery of his craft, exquisitely binding exploitation to art-house treatment, switching to colour for memory or grisly violence and deploying once or twice hand-held camera for shocking style as he pulls his actors inexorably to climax. The film does slip into the realms of the unnecessary in using photographs of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, underlining the climatic violence and its riff on the then all over the papers Tate/Lo Bianco murders but it felt somewhat out of place to me. The dialogue also at times perhaps goes beyond its intent, perhaps a little too arch at times, and the final moment is a little unsubtle, driving home in bleakly humorous fashion a message that could just have well have been left implicit. But the overall effect is hardly abated by these small slips, so potent is the ambiance. Not a film for everyone that's for damn sure, but to those that value the stranger side of serious cinema this is a must see. 9/10. Oh and in case you're wondering, there's tits and bloodshed for those that couldn't give a rats ass about serious cinema. So check it out, punk.
Nihilistic wrist slasher
gregoodsell1 January 2001
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Black-and-white knuckle whitener that explores life at its darkest depths. Bespectacled, effete young man watches a young girl get gang raped on top of an apartment building. Not moving to help her, he waits for her to wake the next morning. The girl claims it's the second time she's been raped. A mysterious bond grows between them, and inviting her to his apartment, he reveals a little secret -- he's a psychotic mass murderer who's just murdered four people who forced him into an orgy!
Seeing as they are both the victims of sexual abuse, the girl's attackers return to the roof of the apartment building. The young man kills them all before the couple make a lover's leap off the building.
PHEW! The film's scorched earth despair hammers home a simple, yet powerful message: the abused go on to abuse others. This title pulls no punches and is recommended for people who like strong, horrific fare in the manner of "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer."
Seeing as they are both the victims of sexual abuse, the girl's attackers return to the roof of the apartment building. The young man kills them all before the couple make a lover's leap off the building.
PHEW! The film's scorched earth despair hammers home a simple, yet powerful message: the abused go on to abuse others. This title pulls no punches and is recommended for people who like strong, horrific fare in the manner of "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer."
A nightmare of misery and pain and violence. Light viewing!
Quinoa198422 April 2024
Go, Go, Second Time Virgin is disturbing and affecting only if one takes it as a dream, or as it subsumed me in the uncomfortable and repetition of a nightmare. You don't follow this story in terms of realism, especially in terms of human behavior, and yet I don't look at these figures on the screen, Poppo (Kozakura) and Tsukio (Akiyama), like they're some unrecognizable beings or aliens from another planet. They're traumatized figures from multiple rapes (one of which the opening of the scene, letting the audience know precisely what this is) and, as we come to find out, a vengeance-soaked mild-mannered killer (ain't they the peachy keen folks), and their bond after Tsukio stands by and sees Poppo raped and doesn't do anything is to talk about how much they want to die.
So, maybe this is also the dream or nightmare of unending and the blackest kind of despair. But it is also shot in this sort of detached Godardian French New Wave approach where things are on such a surreal pace and tone that it feels like every rule is broken in filmmaking so that we can see what makes the traumatized and criminals of the world tick. When these two talk with one another it is all of a randomized piece, like all these violent and bloodied forms make sense even as nothing makes sense.
In a deeper sense, and I may just be spitballing here, the director is looking to portray how minds become wholly discombobulated after traumatic events (as perpetrated or perpetrator), how the only way to communicate and be connected is through a desire for an end to it all (and, eventually, there's unbridled joy in the mania of violence). This apparently ranked in the top 100 list of the New Republic's best Political films ever made some years back, and I can see why that would rank in there. In the sense that is is a harrowing, bitter document of politics, it js about how a destructive force like rapists and a vengeful killer can't and wont stop. And just because one takes it as a jazz-scored chiaroscuro nightmare doesn't make it feel less palpable.
Again, light stuff. I dont think this is something you would even come to unless you know what to expect, but what makes the film so surprising is that the director Wakamatsu, working in the form of Exploitation (and this was released as a "Pink" film or what was close to a Dirty Movie in Japan in those days) uses the wide-screen frame fully and boldly, and the fact that he shot this in four days and got all those shots in the rain is radical by itself. In other words, what at least partially redeems this as something other than just misery porn are things like the sudden song, and how he cast the film and directs Kozakura and especially Akiyama (who strikes me as one of the most chilling Killers in post modern cinema because of his mild demeanor).
Not something I can exactly see myself watching again in a while (one of those excellently made, artistically defiant works), but it is one I'm glad I took a chance on from the Japan section at Kim's.
So, maybe this is also the dream or nightmare of unending and the blackest kind of despair. But it is also shot in this sort of detached Godardian French New Wave approach where things are on such a surreal pace and tone that it feels like every rule is broken in filmmaking so that we can see what makes the traumatized and criminals of the world tick. When these two talk with one another it is all of a randomized piece, like all these violent and bloodied forms make sense even as nothing makes sense.
In a deeper sense, and I may just be spitballing here, the director is looking to portray how minds become wholly discombobulated after traumatic events (as perpetrated or perpetrator), how the only way to communicate and be connected is through a desire for an end to it all (and, eventually, there's unbridled joy in the mania of violence). This apparently ranked in the top 100 list of the New Republic's best Political films ever made some years back, and I can see why that would rank in there. In the sense that is is a harrowing, bitter document of politics, it js about how a destructive force like rapists and a vengeful killer can't and wont stop. And just because one takes it as a jazz-scored chiaroscuro nightmare doesn't make it feel less palpable.
Again, light stuff. I dont think this is something you would even come to unless you know what to expect, but what makes the film so surprising is that the director Wakamatsu, working in the form of Exploitation (and this was released as a "Pink" film or what was close to a Dirty Movie in Japan in those days) uses the wide-screen frame fully and boldly, and the fact that he shot this in four days and got all those shots in the rain is radical by itself. In other words, what at least partially redeems this as something other than just misery porn are things like the sudden song, and how he cast the film and directs Kozakura and especially Akiyama (who strikes me as one of the most chilling Killers in post modern cinema because of his mild demeanor).
Not something I can exactly see myself watching again in a while (one of those excellently made, artistically defiant works), but it is one I'm glad I took a chance on from the Japan section at Kim's.
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