Review: With the recent onslaught of Pinky Violence films hitting the US market in the last year, I had rather high hopes for this Pathfinder release. With the phenomenal Panik House’s Pinky Violence Collection box set in ’06 along with the Discotek release of Miki Sugimoto’s ZERO WOMAN: RED HANDCUFFS(not to mention the recent onslaught of Meiko Kaji films in the past few years), film fans were introduced to a whole new world of cinema. I for one have been a follower of these titles and assumed Pathfinder Pictures would not disappoint.

All will agree that in the world of exploitation each film has its charm in some way or another. Can these films be compared to modern classics in cinema? Of course not but each and everyone film has a little spot in the heart’s of many. Without these films the history of cinema would not be the same. There would be a large gapping hole in the timeline we call 70’s cinema. Throughout the world, the 1970’s was a time for exploration, a time to experiment with the medium and push the boundaries. In Japan, people such as the legendary Meiko Kaji introduced us to a handful of exceptional series like ALLEY CAT ROCK, FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION and the infamous LADY SNOWBLOOD films. As Kaji headed more and more in the direction of A-list filmmaking, the likes Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto reigned supreme and kept things alive in the world of exploitation. So with the release of NAKED PURSUIT one would believe this 1968 film would be a great contribution to this time in film history.

Well, it’s not.

Matter of fact, its not even nowhere near in the same league as some of the classics in the genre. The film strives to be a social commentary on youth of the 60s but turns out to be a repetitive reach at eroticism and sexual deficiency. Quite simply the film doesn’t know what it wants to be. Trying to explain the films plot in more than a few words is to say the least, difficult. The female character runs away. The male chases her. Fully clothed. Torn garments. Half naked. Does it matter? The film just repeats itself a bit too much for its own good. Too tame to be erotic and too senseless to be considered noteworthy, the film ends up just plain exhausting in an attempt to make it all the way through the limited running time. In a era when films with little to no dialogue can come off oh so powerful, NAKED PURSUIT seems to go nowhere quick.

The nail in the coffin comes in the form of an embarrassingly ignorant audio commentary housed on the disc. Wannabe film critic/filmmaker Luke Y Thompson degrades both the film and Japan in general with meaningless and borderline racist comments in exchange for cheap laughs. The more informative and respectable Jess Hlubik is often times hard to hear (he clearly did not what to be included in this debacle) and is overshadowed by the obnoxious Thompson. One would have liked to hear more kind words from trash producer Harry Novak who brought the film to the US shores. This could have drawn a little more to the film as a whole and gave more closure to the overall films point.

As bad as the film sounds, it does manage to have one high point…the camerawork. Shot in mostly stark Black and White and beautiful widescreen, the film is absolutely appealing to watch. Even when times get unbearable and nearly sleep inducing, the cinematography seems to rise above. Right when the film has nowhere else to go and the characters give into to the reality of their existence something rather exceptional occurs to the film. Something that woke me right up. The film digresses into color and something truly bewildering happens. In the closing moments of the film, it transforms into something I never thought it could. An interesting film. The last few shots of the film are a revelation. The color cinematography seems like that of which you would find in far more superior work of the 60s. Unfortunately it’s a little too late and by this time the film is headed not only for the door but also directly down the toilet bowl.