XX: Utsukushiki hyôteki

Naosuke Kurosawa's entry in the "XX" film series is translated to English as XX: Beautiful Victims (1995), and it tells the story of doctor/policewoman, who becomes stalked by a madman who rapes girls, photographs them and kills them in various ways. Soon the protagonist lady accepts to act as a bait for the killer so that he would be caught. The story is in other words something what Guinea Pigs would've been if they had had a plot. Of course XX isn't as gory and sadistic as GPs but it has also its gratuitous shock elements to please twisted freaks interested in this kind of genre cinema!

There are couple of great scares and chills in this film so director Kurosawa really is able to direct horror stories. For example, when one of the lead ladies sees the murdered as a flashback (very Argentoesque detail, by the way), the camera stops for 1/3 seconds to capture the murdered as he walks before the lady, and it really is chilling and effective little element in the film. There's also some other little details to maintain the interest and the soundtrack has also similar menacing sounds like many Guinea Pig sickies. Technically XX: Beautiful Victims is interesting and shows once again how great films Japanese genre directors can do, and XX is still far from the masterpieces, so that's really saying a lot.

There are also many gory scenes like autopsy to stomach and throat (pretty nasty!) and the effects are again very convincing and reminded me of Guinea Pigs again. The attempted rape scenes are moderately sleazy but not as near as smut filled as in Gaira's legendary "Guts" series. There's one lesbian love making scene in XX and it is really gratuitous as neither of the ladies are depicted as lesbians and the scene is there only to please the "raincoat people" and so it makes this film even more interesting to watch for fans of sleaze and sexploitation.

I think the ending tones down pretty much the film since the last line is so incredibly underlining. The character suggests that "This kind of crimes will increase in Japan, influenced by foreign cultures." Now that's unfair isn't it! I think it's there only to provoke and thus it is little tongue in cheek. Well, I'm not saying there's nothing wrong in foreign cultures, but there's definitely something wrong in every culture in the world and people living in it.

This film is worth tracking down for those interested in Japanese underground and extreme cinema, but this is not as brutal as Guinea Pigs so don't expect anything like that. Still, this would be definitely banned in most countries in the world and the first frames of the film already prove it, not to speak of the rest of the film.

6/10