The opening shot of Hideo Gosha’s Tokyo Bordello is of young boys molesting a syphilitic prostitute as she fights her way to the gynaecologist’s office. This altercation takes place in 1907, on a street that has something of the Western to it, only with a stately brothel instead of a saloon, and a gynaecologist’s where you might put the sheriff’s.
And it is within this particular gynaecologist’s that we meet the inbound prostitute, Hisano (Yûko Natori) carted in through the ‘Hell’ gate to this red light district of Yoshiwara, the ‘Paradise’ gate at the opposing end a portal to a Vegas of yore, originally established to divert noblemen centuries earlier but now engorged with Japan’s swelling merchant classes.
When Hisano is examined, her missing virginity is noted: “You had a man, back home?” She remains mute, a slipperiness. Natori works with persistent magic throughout the picture, burying Hisano in powder and silk. In any event, she was sold for 800 yen because her father’s ship sank and he was sued.
“Hisano is soon re-christened Wakashio and, after failing to escape, she settles into her new life”
Then we see a seemingly kind police constable take her fingerprints. But he compliments her soft skin with hungry relish. Nasty – Like realizing a traffic warden has more than a ticket, and you can’t say no. At this point, we are barely five shots into the film.
But having plumbed such abyssal horror, things calm down, and a great deal of fascinating business comes to the fore. The beautifully shot brothel Hisano works in, realized with brilliant sets by Genbee Inada, is more than superficially similar to the bathhouse in Spirited Away.
But instead of the witch Yubaba’s tyranny, the madam here, Ochika (Kayako Sono), runs things with care and sobriety, happily brokering frequent deals for release between the girls and the johns who fall for them. The management of the house gets the kind of rich brush strokes the Corlenones got; the whole film is an amusing and penetrating view of power, corruption, and thighs.
"…This is a rich, wild ride into the past."
