Angel Guts: Red Classroom
天使のはらわた 赤い教室
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A porn-magazine editor searches for the woman he saw raped in a blue film — the second Angel Guts film, and the first written by Takashi Ishii.
On a break in a run-down hot-spring town, Tetsuro Muraki, an editor at a pornographic magazine, watches a blue film in which a young woman is raped in a classroom. He cannot forget her face; it is nothing like the faces of the models he photographs. Back in Tokyo he looks for her without success, until a shoot takes him to a love hotel and he finds her working at the reception desk. Her name is Nami Tsuchiya.
For Nami the film was never a performance. It was made when she was actually raped as a student, and ever since, men who have seen it have used it to get close to her. Muraki tells her he cannot forget her face and asks her to model for his magazine. At an inn she offers herself to him, as she has to the others; he insists that is not what he wants, and they promise to meet again the next day. That day the police haul Muraki in over his magazine. Nami waits for him in the rain in a park, and when he does not come she gives up on men and begins to fall.
Three years later Muraki is in the same trade, married, with a baby daughter. On a night out with colleagues in a seedy bar he runs into Nami, now selling herself, and when he will not leave her alone she has her pimp, Mah-boh, throw him out. He comes back the next day and is beaten until he blacks out. He wakes in a room upstairs and, through a gap in the sliding door, sees Nami performing a sex show with Mah-boh for paying customers, then taking the customers one after another. He cannot watch. When they have gone he begs her to leave with him. She rounds on him and tells him to come over into her world instead. He cannot. They turn their backs on each other and go their separate ways.
Starring
Yuki Mizuharaas Nami Tsuchiya
A love-hotel receptionist whose rape as a student was filmed and sold as a blue film, and who keeps meeting men who have seen it.
Nami Tsuchiya’s story
Nami works behind a love-hotel desk to keep away from men, but the men who have seen the film of her rape keep finding her. At an inn she offers herself to Muraki, as she has to the others; he says that is not what he wants, and they agree to meet the next day. He never comes. She waits in the rain in a park, then gives up on men and begins to fall. Three years later she sells herself in a seedy bar, kept by a pimp, Mah-boh. She has Mah-boh throw Muraki out, then steps in to stop Mah-boh beating him. When Muraki, having watched her with paying customers, begs her to leave with him, she tells him to come over into her world instead. He cannot, and they turn their backs on each other.
Keizo Kanieas Tetsuro Muraki
An editor at a porn magazine who falls for the woman in the film and misses the one appointment that mattered.
Tetsuro Muraki’s story
In a hot-spring town Muraki watches a blue film and cannot forget the face of the woman raped in it, nothing like his models' faces. He finds her at last at a love hotel's reception desk. He asks Nami to model for him, and when she offers herself at an inn, he insists that is not what he wants. The next day the police haul him in over his magazine, and he misses their meeting. Three years later he is married, with a baby daughter. In a seedy bar he runs into Nami and is thrown out by her pimp; he comes back and is beaten unconscious. Through a gap in a sliding door he sees her with paying customers. He begs her to leave with him, but he cannot follow her into her world, and he turns his back.
Ryoichi Kusanagias Mah-boh
Nami's pimp three years on, who puts her to work in a seedy bar and beats Muraki when he comes for her.
Why it matters
Angel Guts: Red Classroom is about a recording of a rape that never stops being watched. Nami cannot leave the film behind, because the men who have seen it keep finding her. Muraki, who fell for her face on that screen, is one of them, and the film does not let him believe that wanting to rescue her makes him a different kind of man. Made for Nikkatsu's Roman Porno line, it is itself a product of the trade its hero works in, and its characters argue openly about whether pornography can ever be more than that. Yuki Mizuhara won best actress at the first Yokohama Film Festival for the role. What stays is the question the last scene puts to the would-be rescuer, and to anyone watching: whether he can bear to see the life she actually lives, or only imagine saving her from it.