This is one of Nikkatsu's Roman Poruno series movies starring one of its biggest star Yuko Katagiri in the role of country girl who comes to Tokyo, but gets used as a prostitute and sex objects for all the guys who wants to take advantage of her.
If you think that that's a horrible story of exploitation, you don't know this series very well. Roman Poruno although often portrays the shabby side of society, it's never dark in its contents. This movie is about a tough girl who carves her place in life while letting men think they're taking advantage of her. But she understands the fine art of give and take, and eeks out a care free living for her self.
But soon her boy friend who owes money to the yakuza, sells her to them, but she's a strong girl and makes her living doing all sorts of odd job as a bar girl, strip dancer, a hot springs geisha etc. Few years later she meets her old boy friend by chance on the streets of Tokyo. Her ex boy friend apologizes to her for selling her to the yakuza, but she says that's all right. It really didn't make much difference to her where she was. She can always make her life doing what she's best at doing, namely using her body.
Nikkatsu's Roman Poruno series is like this. It's usually light hearted, and reflects the under dogs of the society. This might be some reflection of the way Nikkatsu and its staff were living in those days as well, always one step away from bankruptcy of the company.
When I look at the land scape of Tokyo of this movie it looks a lot like more modern cities in present day China, only that it's much better organized. It's shocking to see how ahead of other Asian countries Japan was at the time. The movie is good quality, and fun to watch too. It's a nice slice of Japanese culture from the '70s.
