风情小姨子

　　本多猪四郎監督　　１９６３年／９４分／カラー／３５ミリ／東宝　　出演：高島忠夫、小林哲子、田崎潤　　世界征服を狙うムウ帝国の野望を阻むべく、旧日本海軍が極秘に建造を進めていた海底軍艦が水中・空中・地中を進む。海底軍艦はムウ帝国の守護神マンダをうち破り遂に心臓部に到達する！壊滅したムウ帝国の女王の行動も感動的で何度見ても見飽きない不滅のＳＦ映画。

明朝中叶，西北边城，青楼女子接连被残杀，隐匿线索直指边关军营，神捕白展飞奉命调查，却屡屡受阻，无奈下只得暗中探查。然而当他拨开层层迷雾，竟发现此案潜藏着一场不可告人的惊天阴谋。喋血孤城，命悬一线。（影剧备字〔2023〕第1669号）

葛饰应为生活在艺术几乎完全由男性主导的江户时代，尽管她是北斋之女，但仍作为屈指可数的女性画师活跃于画坛。她拥有连北斋都称赞“在美人画方面胜我一筹”的绘画天赋，同时性格火爆、刚强、烟不离手，是个豪爽洒脱的女性形象。                                                                      　　《喂，应为》的主人公阿荣是北斋的女儿、得力助手，展现了惊人的绘画天赋。她从父亲那里获得了“葛饰应为”这一画号，这个名字源于北斋常常喊她“喂，饭来！”“喂，笔来！”等日常呼唤，“应”代表回应，“为”则有作为、成就之意，是从师父传给弟子的名号，也是父亲传给女儿的象征。尽管她不会泡茶，也不擅长针线活，却以继承自父亲的绘画才华与胆识，在男性社会中闯出一条路。

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.