Play It Cool (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 03, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Yasuzô MasumuraRelease Date(s)
1970 (March 4, 2025)Studio(s)
Daiei Motion Picture Co., Ltd. (Arrow Video)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
Misleadingly described on the IMDb as “an exploitation sex drama just this side of pinku-eiga with Yakuza elements,” Play It Cool (Denki kurage, or, beguilingly “Electric Jellyfish,” 1970) is an unexpectedly strong film from Yasuzo Masumura, whose almost-always interesting features include Giants and Toys, A Wife Confesses, Hoodlum Soldier, Red Angel, and The Blind Beast, among others. Made at Daiei just as that studio teetered on the cusp of bankruptcy, I expected something like that IMDb synopsis, but instead was surprised to a find a typically intriguing Masumura film with strong female characters.
Fashion-student Yumi (Mari Atsumi) lives in a cramped Tokyo apartment with her mother, Tomi (Akemi Negishi), an aging bar hostess, and her gambling addicted, common-law husband. After he rapes Yumi, Tomi stabs him more or less in self-defense, but when she lands in prison, Yumi is forced to go to work at the same “snack” bar her mother worked, flirting with boozed-up, horny male clients.
Yumi, warned about the men there by her mother, may look like a shrinking violet, but she’s hardened her heart when it comes to men, and detaches herself psychologically when it comes to sex, determined to earn enough money to care for her mother once she’s released from prison. A debarred attorney, Nozawa (Yusuke Kawazu), working as a manager for a high-end club in Ginza, recruits her, and she becomes the rage challenging rich clients with high-stakes poker games—she’ll bed down with them if she loses, but mostly she wins huge amounts of money from them, presumably with skills she picked up playing her rapist common-law stepfather. Her popular activities attract the attentions of Nozawa’s Yakuza boss, Kada (Ko Nishimura), who, taken with her frank manner, offers to take her on his mistress.
The film really has little resemblance to pink films other than the occasional nudity and mild sex scenes—one with Nishimura is oddly funny—rather, the picture falls in the tradition of stories of prostitutes and snack bar girls looking to get out, a subgenre best exemplified by Mizoguchi’s superb Street of Shame (1956) and Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960). Play It Cool is more explicit, but almost tasteful compared to the truly pink films of this later era, and the story, from Masayuki Toyama’s novel, has the same verisimilitude as those classic films.
Mari Atsumi delivers a beguiling, enigmatic performance, helping establishing her as an uninhibited sex symbol who, like her character in the film, wasn’t above flaunting her attractive body. The film was also well-received, placing 19th on Kinema Jumpo’s list of the year’s best films, but Daiei went bankrupt the following year, Atsumi never quite recovering from that setback. Yet she and Masumura create an interesting character, like Ayako Wakao’s in Street of Shame she’s determined to make a quick fortune, unconcerned about how her flamboyant nature upsets the balance of things with the other bar girls, or how her very existence as Kada’s mistress upsets his greedy, uncaring relatives, who are, frankly more ruthless toward her than she is toward them.
There are a number of memorable scenes, such as when a rich suitor declares his desire to marry Yumi, and she suggests a drive to rural Tochigi Prefecture to visit her mother, he unaware that she’s in prison, and she knowing full well the awkward position she subjects him to. A late scene in the film between Yumi and Kada’s relatives dissolves into an appalling, realistic free-for-all, shocking in its violence and brutal honesty.
The other performances are good, especially Akemi Negishi as the mother, too desperate (and too drunk) to notice or care that she’s become a pest at the snack bar where she works, and later in not wanting to believe her boyfriend raped her daughter but quickly grappling with and reacting to the horrible truth, and later still scolding her daughter during visiting hours at the prison. Negishi, discovered by Josef von Sternberg for the leading role in Anatahan (1954), was initially typecast as exotic foreign native girl types, such as the feisty native girl in King Kong vs. Godzilla. But she was too good an actress to be ignored, eventually landing major roles in films by Ishiro Honda, Akira Kurosawa (Dodes’ka-den), and Masumura (several films).
Arrow Video’s Blu-ray of Play It Cool presents the film in its original 2.35:1 Daieiscope screen shape, the Fujicolor grainier than usual. This is a wild guess but, given Daiei’s terrible financial state at the time, I wonder if faster film stock was used to expedite the lighting of scenes, and hence reduce shooting days. Regardless, the image has good color and contrast for an obviously quickly-shot picture, but the added grain is noticeable. The LPCM 1.0 mono (Japanese only) is excellent for what it is, and the optional English subtitles are good. The disc is Region “A” encoded.
Supplements consist of an audio commentary by Japanese film scholar Jasper Sharp and Japanese literature specialist Anne McKnight; a long (46 minutes) video essay on the film and director Masumura generally by Mark Roberts; a Japanese trailer (up-rezzed from standard-def) and an image gallery. Also included is a booklet featuring an essay on the film by Earl Jackson.
A pleasant surprise that jibes quite nicely with director Masumura’s career-long interests, this much lesser-known title is recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV