PLAY IT COOL: Catch The Trailer For Yasuzo Masumura’s Unsung Erotic Classic
This one’s different territory for me, albeit familiar in essence with respect to the tone and timbre of 60s and 70s era of Japan cinema. Yasuzo Masumura’s Play It Cool was a fine product to review ahead of its release, and that article will go live Monday, ahead of its March 4 release on Limited Edition Blu-Ray from Arrow Video. In the meantime, the boutique released an official trailer which you can check out as well.
Play it Cool is a chic and erotically charged drama starring popular Japanese singer of the day Mari Atsumi as a college girl negotiating her way through the male-dominated hierarchies of Tokyo’s seductive but treacherous nightclub culture.
Yumi (Mari Atsumi) is a pretty fashion student who shares a cramped home with her mother Tomi (Akemi Negishi, The Saga of Anatahan) and good-for-nothing stepfather Ryoichi. Tomi works at a local hostess bar and hopes for a better fate for Yumi. When Ryoichi violently forces himself upon her blossoming daughter, Tomi is not afraid to take action to protect her, an act which lands her in jail. Left to fend for herself, Yumi is taken in by her mother’s former place of employment, where she finds herself fighting off the unwanted attentions of the men who swarm around her. Then one day, a rescue by handsome former lawyer Nozawa (Yusuke Kawazu, Cruel Story of Youth) from a vicious gangster seems to offer an escape into an altogether glitzier world, albeit one that turns out fraught with similar dangers.
Arrow Films is proud to release this little-seen gem by one of Japan’s most highly regarded directors of the 1960s, Yasuzō Masumura (Giants and Toys, Irezumi), a filmmaker known for his social satires and powerful portrayals of women, as Play it Cool is released for the very first time for the home video market outside of Japan in a brand new high-definition transfer.
Pre-orders are up and running over at the Arrow website as well. Additionally, the film will also hit the company’s in-house SVOD platform a day before its physical release.
Check out the trailer!
