Scorsese Solicits Soft-Core Sachiko

[Mulboyne]

Japan Times: "Hanai Sachiko no Karei na Shogai (The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai)"

...As the film begins, the eponymous heroine...is working as a "teacher" in an "image club"...Blessed with a curvy figure, but otherwise entirely ordinary, Sachiko becomes an unwilling witness to a shooting in a coffee shop -- and takes a round from the killer...that lodges in her noggin...the bullet sends her IQ soaring. She visits seedy professor Saeki...Having found his ultimate erotic playmate, who can quote from "The Critique of Pure Reason" as she climaxes, Saeki installs her in his home as a tutor...Meanwhile, Sachiko's would-be killer -- a North Korean spy -- is on her trail to not only finish what he started, but to retrieve the cloned finger of George W. Bush that Sachiko picked up on her dazed way out the coffee shop door...more...

The article says this film is now playing, with English subtitles, as the late show at the Pole Pole theater in Higashi Nakano. The film's site has this from the director of the NY Film festival: "Just wanted to let you know that I sent a VHS of Sachiko Hanai to Martin Scorsese. He requested it."

[TobidashiChui]

I saw this flick at the Chicago International Film Festival this past October. I enjoyed it, but I'll admit it was not a good movie from a directorial standpoint. The director was at the screening and basically adopted a sort of "Don't blame me, I only directed this mess attitude toward the movie." (The film festival people should probably had invited the screen-writer to the shooting. The real interesting element of this movie is that it is basically a Pink Film with an Anti-Bush and pseudo-philosophical angle to it.

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SPOILERS: During the 15 minutes of plot, roleplaying hooker (Sachiko Hanai) accidently enters the wrong bar attempting to meet a client. She witnesses an arms deal between a Korean man and some other undisclosed gaijin guy. The deal goes sour and the Korean shoots the gaijin. Sachiko, with her heart in the right and her brain in lala land decided to overtly photograph the incident with her keitai camera. While attempting to get the photo a bullet lands in the middle of her forehead knocking her to the floor for a moment.

She wakes up after a few seconds and is escorted from the bar by the bar owner leaving her cell phone behind and accidently taking the weapon the Korean wanted. The Korean guy recovers the phone and begins stalking and obsessing about her.

On the way home, a police officer notices her. Confused he helps her... which involves jamming her and blowing a load on her bullet hole adorn bloody face. After her sexual encounter, the police officer leaves and she goes to the bathroom to clean off her face. Noticing the bullet hole in her head, she decides to investigate it with an eyebrow pencil launching the bullet a few centimeters deeper in her head. A chemical reaction follows affecting what I believe is her thalmus or hippocampus (I suppose I really don't need to analyse this element of the plot, but I think it is funny that the writer imagined that some hot lead in that area of the brain would cause a chemical reaction. Anyway...)

This affectation leads Sachiko to start behaving in extremes. She goes through a period of intellectual hyperactivity, where she heads to a man selling books on a small table on the streets and begins reading some philosophy. The old man running the table objects at first, but decides not to eject her from his shop because he has a really excellent view of her panty-covered crotch up her skirt.

Sachiko has a mental revelation and begins contemplating complex Calclus on the side scribbling with chalk on the side of a highrise wall, then heads to a library where she burns through book upon book upon book. She notices a metaphysics book written by a professor named Saeki and is blown away by it to the point where she begins eating pages out of the book. Shortly afterward, she decides to visit Saeki's college.

After meeting the professor she begins ripping off her clothes while talking about Susan Sontag and Noam Chomsky. They have sex. Following their sexual encounter, the professor asks her to live with him and his family because, "[he] loves [his] wife, but she doesn't talk about Chomsky like [Sachiko does]."

The professor introduces Sachiko to his wife and son. The professor's son is war obsessed to the point where he no longer cares about his studies. When Sachiko asks the son for a reason for neglecting his studies, he explains, "war is always happening. why try to succeed in a world that is destined to blow up?" She convinces him that the only reason to pursue intelligencia is because of the most important thing in the world: the vagina? She promises to give it up to him if he improves his academic act.

One of the weird side effects of Sachiko's ailment is that not only is she incredibly smart, but also drifts between other sensory extremes. She fills a cup of coffee with sugar and thinks it is too strong. Seconds later she reacts with a great deal of disgust when she feels the aftertaste of her previous drinking experiences. Sometimes she suddenly becomes extremely horny... during the family dinner or while talking about Algebra. This leads her to fondle her breasts and rip off her clothes for no reason.

During a scene where Sachiko attempts to apply some lipstick at the top of a building, she notices that she has a lipstick shaped weapon in her purse. She opens it like a lipstick and a dismembered red finger with a American flag inspired painted nail comes out. The finger starts talking to her and explains that he is the cloned digit of President George W Bush designed to give the highest bidding terrorist the fingerprint activation access to the world's nuclear weapon system. Not wasting more than 7 minutes to have a fucking scene, the finger decides to fuck her. Which is rather brutal because the finger is so powerful it flies under the power of fishing line and is able to make Sachiko's hand guide it into her panties. Then a misterious bungee cord guides a television on a rolling TV Cart into the frame with a man who looks a lot like a Japanese man wearing a blown-up photo of George W Bush's face over his face. Bush taunts her during the rape telling her, "Nobody can resist the power of my fingering technique." A subtitle flashes on the screen saying "The Terrorists hide in caves" then the TV Bush character shouts, let's see if there are any terrorists in your cave.

The wife of the professor eventually becomes hip to Sachiko's messing with her son and screwing her husband and decides to hire a Korean gangster as a private investigator. The PI is, of course, the Korean who had shot Sachiko during the bar scene. He brutally rapes the wife in a very uncomfortable scene. Eventually, the Korean ends up at the professor's place and shoots the professor and kidnaps Sachiko. They go to a cave in the middle of nowhere and fuck, then arm the missle defense system... which is a rather interesting design complete with design elements you would expect like a rubber duck and a toy car connected to it. The Korean begins conversing with his "boss" but realizes the implications of forfeiting Bush's finger.

He refuses to comply with his boss's orders. Which results in three women heading into the cave to get the finger. During this melee, Sachiko decides to just say, "fuck it" and arms the weapon with Bush's finger effectively blowing up the planet.

This is a rough outline of what the movie is all about. The thing that strikes me about the movie is that while it is funny, it is not worthy of the film festival attention it is recieving. I believe many festivals are hosting the flick because it has an anti-war and anti-Bush slant to it (this statement, coming from me is rather harsh because I am what many people would label a liberal). Another interesting side note, the actress who plays Sachiko is currently a professional wrestler in Japan.