Review: The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai

A deranged derivative of a Japanese softporn genre known as "pink film," The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai concerns the surreal adventures of a role-playing prostitute (Kuroda Emi.) When Sachiko is shot smack-dab in the forehead by a North Korean terrorist, the bullet gets lodged in her brain and turns her into a genius who gets aroused by the mere mention of Noam Chomsky. In her handbag, she finds the cloned trigger finger of George W. Bush, who appears to her at the bottom of a water bucket, and later, on a rooftop, where a warped version of the infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech plays on a TV that materializes out of nowhere. 

After that, things get really strange. I might have fallen asleep and dreamt the part about the wind-up toy that saves the world from nuclear holocaust, but it’s clear that The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai is some sort of obscene, elaborate joke at the expense of the Bush Administration. With its flashes of violence and gross-out humor, endless sex scenes, and bizarro political commentary reenacted by GI Joe Dolls, it’s the trashy midnight weird-out that Grindhouse could have been. The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai, directed by Mitsuru Meike, is currently playing at New York's Cinema Village. Palm Pictures' official site has the trailer. *** [posted by Jürgen]