Director Yôjirô Takita, whose 2008 film OKURIBITO (DEPARTURES) won the 2009 Best Foreign Film Academy Award, cut his teeth on "pinku" sex melodramas of which HIGH NOON RIPPER is an undistinguished example. Noriko, a scrappy female journalist and her photographer try to unravel the identity of a brutal killer who only strikes in broad daylight. The story line, which is not very coherent to start with, halts on a regular basis to accommodate scenes of Noriko and others having sex with others or themselves, usually in a shower. Additionally, the movie's plot similarly unravels around a cynical denouement that left this viewer as cold as the corpses that have piled up. HIGH NOON RIPPER (also released as DARKROOM FANTASIES) shares story elements with an earlier, far superior Takita 1983 pinku thriller, RENZOKU BÔKAN (THE SERIAL RAPE MURDERER, or literally, CONTINUOUS RAPE), as well as its lead actress Kaoru Orimoto.
