Zoom In: Rape Apartments
Synopsis. A woman living in an expensive Tokyo apartment suspects that the piano tuner living on the same floor is the man who raped her years before. When she witnesses the man raping another woman, she becomes convinced of his identity, but is unwilling to report him to the police because of a mysterious attraction she has towards him. Background. "Zoom In: Rape Apartments" was an unofficial sequel to director Kōyū Ohara's "" (1979), inspired by the success of that film and written by that film's screenwriter Chiho Katsurako. For "Zoom In: Rape Apartments", Nikkatsu  intentionally cut back on the extreme violence displayed in Ohara's earlier film. The surrealistic elements of the film, such as a scene in which liquid dripping from a woman's vagina bursts into flame upon hitting the ground, has led some to compare Kurosawa's style to that of Seijun Suzuki. The film inspired a series of films using the Zoom In/Zoom Up title, including "Zoom Up: Woman From The Dirty Magazine" (1980), "Zoom Up: Sexual Crime Report" (1981), "Zoom Up: Genuine Look At A Stripper" (1982), "Zoom Up: Graduation Photos" (1984), and "Zoom Up: Special Masturbation" (1986 ). Critical appraisal. Japanese critics praised director Naosuke Kurosawa's use of imagery in "Zoom In: Rape Apartments" and the film's cinematography. They were not as impressed with the script, however, complaining that it was weak. In their "Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films", Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser give the film a rating of two-and-a-half out of four stars. They judge that the film's strong visual sense compensates for the writing, noting that pink film scripts are not generally the best. They write, "Kurosawa's 'color-and-shadow' work is akin to that of an  erotic Seijun Suzuki." Allmovie warns that the film's subject matter is not for all audiences, but judges it to be "one of the Nikkatsu studio's most unusual "pinku eiga" films." Availability. "Zoom In: Rape Apartments" was released theatrically in Japan on March 15, 1980. It was released on DVD in Japan on March 24, 2006 as part of Geneon's third wave of Nikkatsu "Roman porno" series.