A mere two months before the release of Teruo Ishii's “Shogun's Joys of Torture”, which would kickstart his “Joys of Torture” series and propel him into fame and notoriety, another one of his projects was released, titled “Hot Springs Geisha”. This project would go on to enjoy a large amount of commercial success and spawn five sequels, even if Ishii would not return to direct another feature in the series.
In a small seaside resort town live a group of geishas who court businessmen that come to the resort town for the weekend, on business tours or holidays. Required to provide massages and raunchy entertainment by the day and companionship by night, these ladies' days are spent trying to gain patronage from their regular clients in hopes of a comfortable life away from the trade, bickering with rival geisha troupes and, in the case of Chiyo, a virgin geisha, trying to win over the affection of the handsome new doctor in town. However, when they decide to take in a heavily pregnant girl until she delivers her baby, they get a lot more trouble than they bargained for.
If one was not privy to the knowledge that this is Teruo Ishii feature prior to watching it, you'd be hard-pressed to believe that this is a work by the same person who made ero guro classics like “Orgies of Edo”, “Horrors of the Malformed Men” or “Inferno of Torture”. For one projected as a sex comedy, there's little in this production in the way of comedy and, oddly for an Ishii feature, even lesser of sex and nudity.
The comedic scenes, most of which try to derive humour in the efforts of much elder men trying to get in the geishas' pants, feel outdated and weary. Admittedly, there's a fun scene right around the middle of the runtime where the two troupes of geishas have a naked catfight by the swimming pool as a man secretly videos them, but that's where the only nudity in the feature is limited to. The rest of the narrative leaves the majority of it up to the audience's imagination. Sure enough, the script does well to explore the plight of these women and the challenges they face on a daily basis. But once the drama starts as the story goes along, it somewhat loses focus. The conclusion to the story with the pregnant lady and her husband also seems questionable.
For the most part, Ishii relies on the sensuality of his actresses, of which there are too many, to keep the audience's interest vested, and in that effort, he is favoured by having a plethora of beautiful barely dressed women populating the screen. Of those, Masumi Tachibana as the nubile Chiyo and Yoko Mihara as the experienced Tomimaru get to spend the most time on-screen. With what's on display here, it's easy to see why Masumi Tachibana also features in future Ishii films. Not only is she very attractive, but is also capable of emoting well. Teruo Yoshida, as one of the few male members of the cast who appear at regular intervals, sadly doesn't have a lot to do. This is a woman's world and the men are merely there to further the females' stories.
Even with some lovely cinematography, particularly of the outdoor scenery in the resort town which is beautifully captured, “Hot Springs Geisha” does very little to stand out. Its lack of sufficient skin-show, even for the times that it was produced and considering the genre it is packaged in, makes its commercial success puzzling. As a silver lining though, Ishii's film is generally considered the weakest of the series and the subsequent features apparently show a substantial leap in quality for the better.
