Director
Masaru Konuma originally wrote a script about a man who runs a small
resort in the mountains which he uses literally as a tourist trap.
Nikkatsu studios gave him the green light for the project but then started
back-peddling. It seems the company had already promoted the title as
a hardcore porno film, designed to launch the new Harder than
Pink direct-to-home-video collection.
Konuma was furious over the studio tampering with his script (which
had been based on a story by Kazuo 'Gaira' Komizu of ENTRAILS
OF THE VIRGIN fame). He pulled the project from the production
schedule. However, an accord was finally reached between him and the
company. Mr Konuma agreed to deliver a shot-on-video sex movie called
Woman in the Box: Virgin Sacrifice in exchange for the
studio financing his original script as a theatrical project under the
Woman in the Box title.
This,
then, is the movie Konuma wanted to make and it's especially obvious
from the care put into the production. Similar in style to his S&M
classics FLOWER
AND SNAKE and WIFE
TO BE SACRIFICED, this one tells the story of a young woman
on vacation who is captured after her husband has a skiing accident
in the mountains. The kidnapper, a mild-mannered resort owner, keeps
the girl in a 3X5 box in the basement where he teaches her "the
joys of freedom through domination." Eventually, after days of
torture and brutalization, she escapes only to return to the lifestyle
on her own free will. By contemporary standards, this is a reprehensible
message, but the film remains one of Masaru's best-looking projects.
It would also be his last for Nikkatsu. The disagreement left such a
bad taste that he walked away from the studio that had been his home
since 1971 to join Nihon Television where he would flourish as a TV
action director. In the mid '90s, Masaru Konoma returned to the big
screen with a lurid thriller, MURDER
FOR PLEASURE.
In
1998, Asian Cult Cinema magazine interviewed Masaru Konuma
(see issue ACC
22). When asked: "Who is Japan's most underappreciated
director?" he replied: "Besides me?" A few short years
later, Hideo Nakata (the director of RING),
made a theatrical documentary about Masaru Konuma - SADISTIC
AND MASOCHISTIC - honoring him as "a true master of cinema."
Today, he is considered a Japanese icon. Mr Konuma is currently enjoying
his retirement quietly in Tokyo at age 83.
A
Japanese film, with English subtitles; widescreen format,
73 minutes, encoded for ALL REGIONS NTSC,
playable on any American machine; Extras include selected trailers.
Please Note: As typical of all Japanese Pink Films
from this era, genitalia shots are censored
Graphic Violence/S&M/Sexual
Brutality/Nudity
For Adult Audiences Only