ANGEL GUTS 5-disc box set
(ArtsMagic DVD, 1978-1988)

By Barry Meyer

In the early 1970s, Japan's oldest movie studio Nikkatsu Corporation began producing softcore exploitation flicks known as "roman porno" in an attempt to stave off imminent bankruptcy.  Their gamble worked, and soon these "romantic pornographic" films created a frenzy at the box office, drawing in audiences that were attracted to highly stylized but evocative exploitation flicks. The "Angel Guts" series were early examples of these edgy and darkly erotic tales that focused mainly on rape and violence against women.  But, where American exploitation flicks aimed just to shock, these Japanese "pink films" tipped the balance and showed (dare I say) a more sensitive side of the sordid topic; a side that explored the strengths of the victim – thus the title "Angel Guts."

            High School Co-ed (1978) starts out pretty routinely for an exploitation flick, with a trio of motorcycle thugs seeking out and finding defenseless young victims to rape. They carry out their hobby with all the giddiness of a bunch of school boys hunting frogs.  But, when the gang comes across their next intended victim, an innocent school girl named Nami, one of the guys has a sudden moral dilemma and begins having real feelings of – yikes! – love? His new found ethics bring the dude in conflict with his mates, and to resolve the conflict within the gang, he must rape the girl as the others watch.  When the gang leader feels the "rape" looks more like a romantic liaison, he sets his vengeful sites on the friend's innocent younger sister.

            Red Classroom (1979) explores, with David Lynch-ian weirdness, the cruel complications of rape and violence on both the victim and perpetrator. A nudie mag photographer finds himself strangely attracted to a model in an underground rape film, and when he runs into the actress, Nami (related only in name and circumstance to all the other Nami's in the "Angel Guts" series) he foolishly promises her a way out of the ugly world of skin movies. When his fool-hearted  promises aren't fulfilled both their worlds are sent into a downward spiral. Obsession and repentance plague the photographer, urging him to seek out the girl he left behind years ago, only to find that she has become the unexpected master of her own victimization. In one strikingly original sequence, the prostitute Nami decides that she will no longer be the victim of the filthy men who have ruined her life. In the riveting 15-minute-long scene Nami is being flopped around a hotel bed by a callous and caustic-mouth john. When the john has had his fun and prepares to leave Nami alone and wasted, Nami begins to recognize that she is actually the one with the power in this small battle of the sexes.  She tests her new empowerment by seducing the john right back into bed and forcing him to please her for a change. Exhausted, the man tries to drag himself off to his wife, who thinks he's just out for drinks in the hotel bar, but Nami pulls him back in (literally) and "forces" him to perform again, and again.  Feminist rape?  Empowered prostitute?  It's mind-boggling.  

            Nami (1979), the third installment, switches the roles.  Nami is an investigative reporter chasing after rape victims and squeezing sordid stories out of them for the pleasure of her readers – a form of rape in itself, no?  This is probably the most trippy of the "Angel Guts" flicks, utilizing some freaky dream sequences and surreal imagery as Nami's sane world crumbles around her.  A once successful adult magazine editor comes to her rescue, trying to overcome the guilt and powerlessness he's felt ever since his own wife became a victim of rape.

            Red Porno (1981) explores the demoralization of women in the media, through the misfortunes of a hapless young lady who naively stands in for a friend at a photo shoot. Before she can figure out what’s happening, sweet little Nami is tied up, gagged and photographed for an issue of a popular S&M magazine. When one of the magazine's avid readers recognizes the genuine fear welling from Nami's eyes, he becomes obsessed and falls in love with the girl in the photograph. The fan begins stalking Nami, trying to convince her that he loves the real her, and not the one in the magazine.

            The last of the series, Red Vertigo (1988), is probably the most shameless and explicit of the "Angel Guts" flicks. And one of the more overtly exploitative, as well. On the run from an embezzlement rap, a young businessman accidentally runs over Nami with his car. Not wanting to draw more bad fortune on himself, the loser shovels the unconscious-but-breathing girl into the passenger seat and drives off, trying to figure out his next move.  Fearing that his troubled life is spiraling out of control, the man irrationally believes that if he can only "make love" to the cataleptic girl sitting next to him, everything will magically be all right.  He never thinks that maybe Nami – who'd already been sexually assaulted the night before by two patients at the hospital where she works as a nurse, and who then returned home to cry on her boyfriend's shoulder only to find him in bed with a model he'd been photographing for a skin magazine – might not be too pleased with his ill-conceived amorous advances. After dragging his unwilling mate to a deserted factory and failing to rise to the occasion, the loser somehow convinces Nami that both their lives are shit, and that they themselves amount to nothing more than piles of shit, so they should become boyfriend and girlfriend and runaway together, away from all the troubles that plague them.  Ah, the romance!

            Unlike the exploitation films that were being produced in the Western world throughout the 60s and 70s, Nikkatsu Corporation gave their movies respectable budgets allowing for imaginative and innovative camera work, well-honed performances, and most keenly of all, insightful and thought-provoking stories.  There's no denying that the subject matter is beyond the boundaries of most people’s tastes, but writer Takashii Ishii – who penned all the scripts based on his popular manga comic series – quite effectively explores the depths of human nature, drawing out the rawest emotions from the most reprehensible and shocking characters while portraying them as human beings.  

            "Angel Guts" could easily be viewed as mindlessly sexist, violently misogynistic and purely exploitative – and it’s hard to begrudge detractors their revulsion– but those more adventurous film fans who can manage to put on the moral blinders and keep their jumpy fingers off the V-chip button, there is a lot of social commentary to be had in these challenging flicks.