The Films of Hisayasu Satô: Volume #6 - Muscle / Temptation of the Mask / Bondage Ecstasy

Hisayasu Satô's filmic exploration of his preferred themes took a turn for a handful of gay-focused stories within the Pinku genre. Although comprising a small portion of the prolific director's body of work, several are among his most beloved projects. Here we compile three late 1980s films produced for Enk Promotion, again showcasing Satô's distinctly creative style. 

An introverted youth is arrested while trying to set a house ablaze, and the detective assigned to the case takes a special interest in the suspect while getting him to talk in TEMPTATION OF THE MASK (1987). It seems that the young man will only tell his tale once the detective allows him to play Russian roulette with his revolver, and scandalous secrets about the young man's family begin to be recounted. Once the detective begins lusting after the suspect himself, a tenuous bond between them forms while the detective learns more about the varied abuse the young man has faced. 

In 1988's MUSCLE, a man newly released from prison (and infatuated with Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini) is bent on sorting out his affairs from before he went inside. Reconnecting with a peer from the bodybuilding magazine he worked for, he begins to seek out a Kitami, a model from the magazine with whom he had a rough affair that ended disastrously. An obsessive longing and the weight of emotional memory seem to propel the man into the gay underground. Despite everyone he comes across attempting to discourage him, he tracks down Kitami with explosive results. 

Merely reading Kafka's Metamorphosis is enough to cause a man to turn into an insect in BONDAGE ECSTASY (1989). As an insect, he invades the most private spaces of several people, and then commenting on them gives a unique angle to Satô's oft-used voyeur trope, while the insect jumps from one person to the next. Exploring not just bondage but also a toxic corporate workplace and a bisexual love triangle, the film employs dreamy visuals and an often lighter, even absurdist tone to take on fantasies of vengeance while still maintaining a comic edge.