Rina Koike was in a film last February, “Red x Pink” aka “Girl’s Blood.” The trailer is definitely NSFW, and it looks like this movie could veer into the gross and exploitative. However, it could be totally awesome. Here’s why:
- It centers on an all-girl fight club. (!)
- There is a lesbian romance. (!!!)
- One of the characters apparently suffers from gender dysphoria, meaning they could be trans or genderqueer. (!!!!!)
- AND IT LOOKS LIKE THEY ARE ALL IN FANTASTIC SUPPORTIVE FRIENDSHIPS WITH ONE ANOTHER. (!!!!!!!~INFINITY)
So I’ll be hunting down this movie in due time. I don’t have the highest hopes ever, but I won’t discount it out of hand.
pls when you find this share the wealth omg!
but i see what u mean about how this movie can be gross and exploitative—it is HEAVY on the male gaze business and it looks like the images of sexual assault are framed in a titillating manner.
i hope they kill that dude.
Oh, I will definitely let you guys know when I find a good streaming site/download/etc. I have a feeling it won’t be that hard for once as there’s actually a separate English title, so I guess there was a limited release dubbed or subbed.
yeeeeaaah the gaze issue is what’s keeping me from having really high hopes. I mean the mud wrestling shot alone (YOU KNOW THE ONE) was so gross.
But it wouldn’t be the first piece of media to have a positive message in spite of issues like this, which is why I can’t completely write it off either.
I can’t help but think of “Don’t Shoot!! Idol Insiders” (which to be honest is never far from my mind) and how fucking brilliant it is. The whole thing is presented as a documentary series following these idols around, and a lot of it is blatant pandering to a male audience.
Relevant: in the first episode, the camera man is blatantly shooting as if it’s an idol DVD, and the girl gives him THE BEST LOOK OF DISDAIN when she catches him at it. Then the camera man gets reprimanded by his boss for being so obviously gross. Because you’ve gotta be subtle about it, god! It was a fucking rabbit hole that looped back on itself, I swear.
But at the same time, it manages to subvert itself by pointing out the gross nature of the business, how the girls are frequently exploited and mistreated in the industry, how desperately UNHAPPY so many of them are with their career, how getting in to this idol group was something they all desperately wanted to help them branch out of gravure, and essentially humanizes these idols who are so often objectified and dehumanized in their medium.
This managed to get super rambley and totally off the subject, whoops, but YEAH I WILL TOTALLY HOOK YOU GUYS UP ONCE I FIND THIS. <3