Confidential Secret Market

Noboru Tanaka returned to direct the third of Nikkatsu’s pinku eiga melodramas examining prostitution in various Japanese cities. This one focuses on modern-day Osaka, and although it is still a softcore film, is the most outrageous of the lot. The casting is almost demented, with classical ballerina and staunch feminist Genshu Hanayagi smoking a cigarette with her privates, poet Sakumi Hagiwara blowing up some gangsters by suicidally detonating a gas-filled love doll, and similarly peculiar appearances from notorious druggie Meika Seri and genre icon Junko Miyashita. Highly recommended for pinku eiga aficionados, this one must be seen to be believed.