The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai

Hanai Sachiko no kareina shogai; erotic comedy / satire, Japan, 2004; D: Mitsuru Meike, S: Emi Kuroda, Takeshi Ito, Yukijiro Hotaru, Kyoko Hayami

Hanai Sachiko is a call girl. She excites her latest customer by playing the role of a teacher. One evening, one criminal shoots his colleague in a pub, while a lost bullet hits Sachiko in the head. Still, she stays alive and leaves the place, accidentally taking a mysterious, chopped finger with her. As a consequence from the bullet, she becomes extremely intelligent and starts reading numerous books. After meeting professor Toshio Saeki, Sachiko starts giving instructions to his son Mamoru. It is discovered the finger belongs to George W. Bush and that it can be used to rule the world. A murderer finds her, but she persuades him to together discover the secret of the finger that can ignite a machine with nuclear weapons and that is seaked by North Korean agents. But she says "Goodbye weapons".

"The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai" is a real example of the Japanese so called "Pink" movie, which means it's a soft core porn that's cheap, trashy and filled with scenes of sex, but it stands out by the bizarre fact that some have called it the first "anti-Bush porn" in cinema. Namely, the authors decided to present a loose story and incorporate a subplot in which George W. Bush with the help of a mysterious chopped finger wants to rule over the world, and there are even inserts of the war in Iraq. The movie is nonsense, but it's a "guilty pleasure" because of its unbelievable, wild humor that doesn't hesitate to display all kind of nonsense, and in the format of the "Pink" genre, it's often inventive and original - not to mention that the main actress Emi Kuroda is very amusing in her role as the title call girl. It contains two incredibly bizarre sequences: Sachiko and professor Toshio have intercourse while they are philosophising about Chomsky and Melville. A naked Sachiko shows her vagina to Mamoru and says: "Nietzsche, Einstein and Earl of Sandwich all come from out of there". Mitsuru Meike's thin film is trash, plot-vise it's messy and in the second half it looses it's initial energy, but it's an unseen synthesis of cheap porn and intelligent metaphysical satire.

Grade:++