Woman Of The Afternoon: Incite!/Comments

• Boringly titled ”Woman of the Afternoon: Incite!” sounds like another dull soft core pic from Nikkatsu. But director Nobuyaki Saito surprises, more than once. The film has an unpromising opening, but almost immediately after turns into a upbeat romantic drama. Decently acted with a nice audio-visual touch from the director, Woman of the Afternoon feels more fresh than most of its genre sisters. Unlike many other cheapskate Nikkatsu directors Saito keeps the film moving, literally. The storyline follows a woman (Natsuko Yashiro) who runs away from her husband, and bumps into a gay hitchhiker who’s on his way to meet his boyfriend. After this the film takes another interesting turn that works best when left for the viewer to discover. If you want to know more, keep reading, otherwise stop here. When the main character arrives a small countryside village, the film suddenly moves to tense thriller territory. The local inhabitants turn out to be good old school rednecks with nothing but rapes and brutal assaults in their mind. --HungFist