Like with most remotely successful productions in Japan at the time, the vast commercial triumph of Teruo Ishii's “Hot Springs Geisha” also prompted its studio Toei to fast-track production on more in the series and just a few months later, “Hot Springs Pimp Geisha” was released, this time helmed by actress/director Misao Arai, although it couldn't be more different than Ishii's first one in terms of tone and treatment.
The setting yet again is an onsen (a hot spring) resort town, where the Ocean Observation Tower is one of the popular joints, providing all the services that such a place has to offer. The top girl there is Iku, who has been at the establishment for years and considers it home, but her love for local pickup guy Hide stops her from sleeping with other guests, despite plenty of attention. When her estranged sister Mimi returns one day as a single mother to the town with a Yakuza gang from Tokyo and sets up a hip new place New Naples offering many new exotic services, business at Ocean Observation Tower starts to dwindle. Mimi, meanwhile, sleeps her way to the top of the Yakuza and comes head-to-head with her elder sister, but she is soon to find out that the cost of sleeping with the Yakuza is pretty steep and one that she might not be willing to pay.
In my review for Ishii's “Hot Springs Geisha”, I specifically mentioned that the film, which was marketed as a “sex comedy”, severely lacked sexual content and was far from funny for the most part. It would seem that Toei might've gotten similar feedback back in the day, because they change things up completely in this immediate follow-up. Right from the very first scene, there's nudity aplenty, the title sequence in the first three minutes of the runtime being nothing but bare naked ladies frolicking in the waters at the hot springs. As it goes along, the nudity quotient keeps rising but never feels gratuitous, as Misao Arai never really relies purely on eroticism to drive the feature forward, like Ishii's earlier work seemed to do.
This largely has to do with the fact that the story this time is not one of comedy, but rather one about a struggle between two sisters, with the Yakuza thrown explicably into the narrative. This facilitates for sufficient time for drama, action and even a healthy dose of melodrama. These variations in the focus of the narrative don't always gel too well, and Arai seems to be more adept at the drama instead of the other bits. However, the feature also includes one unexpectedly violent scene which does surprise with its presence in the otherwise mellow proceedings.
If the story doesn't rely on the sexual content, the performances from its actresses give the impression that they bank on that aspect. Of course, both Mitsuko Aoi as Iku and the returning Masumi Tachibana as Mimi do have a fair bit of dramatic baggage to carry and seem to have a flair at it, but essentially, their performances rely rather heavily on their sensuality. Both the characters have varying storylines, Iku the geisha with dreams and a heart of gold and Mimi the moll who comes across as a negative character for the most part, but both Aoi and Tachibana give it their best to etch them out well. Masuki Okada as Hide, meanwhile, doesn't get a lot of scope in this predominantly female story.
Cinematographer Sadatsugu Yoshida knows exactly what is expected of him and his work here and makes the most of both the lovely seaside setting as well as the large crowd of lovely barely dressed ladies. From the very onset, his camera focuses on the female anatomy quite acutely, as evident from the opening credits sequence. The sex scenes are sensuous and risqué without being too explicit and edited together well. Masao Yagi's music is adequate and the theme song “Lonely Woman's Blues”, performed by Namiko Tsushima, ends up being hummable.
Even with its narrative issues, “Hot Springs Pimp Geisha” is a massive improvement on the first feature, which was not a very high bar to begin with, and ends up being a decent watch with a half-decent story, free-handed nudity and plenty eye-candy for those looking for it.
