REVIEW: Deep Contact

ディープ・コンタックト(Deepu Konttakato)

Released: 1998

Director:
Yukio Kitazawa

Starring:Riri Kuramoto
Shoko Kudo
Kyoko Kazama
Seiji Nakamitsu
Motoko Sasaki

Running time: 61 min.


Reviewed by Chris MaGee

In 1998 Hollywood didn't just bring us one but two big budget sci-fi disaster films based oround a giant comet or asteroid on a collision course with our planet. In May of that year came Mimi Leder's "Deep Impact" that starred Tia Leoni as a reporter who blows the lid off a White House cover-up of a giant asteroid the size of Texas that will wipe out all life on Earth. Robert Duvall played a grizzled old astronaut who leads a crack team of scientists who try and knock the asteroid off its deadly trajectory. Then in July came Michael Bay's "Armageddon", which despite its goofy plot that involved Bruce Willis and his oil driller buddies getting conscripted by NASA to again knock a giant asteroid off its collision course, proved more popular with audiences. These movies both used nukes drilled into the interstellar ice and rock of these rogue asteroids to either blow them up entirely or to veer them in a less deadly orbit of the planet. It's too bad that none of the scientists in these films thought to use the colossal power of Sexual Psychokinesis to bat these asteroids out of the sky. I guess the Yankees like their big guns and explosions. In Japan on the other hand, and specifically in the mind of pink film director Yukio Kitazawa, some good old-fashioned sexual intercourse can do the job a lot more easily and doesn't require an expensive rocket.

"Deep Contact" the lesser known third film of 1998's Killer Asteroid Trilogy, has a hundredth of the budget of its two American counterparts, but what it lacks in production value (and acting ability, and believable writing) is an over abundance of of tits and ass and various bodily fluids. You see in this pinku eiga space disaster shares a lot with "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon". Like "Deep Impact" the existence of a killer comet is being kept a secret to avoid mass panic amongst Earth's populace. It also shares a think tank of brilliant scientists who are trying to find a way to prevent an extinction level incident from occurring. And like "Armageddon" it falls to a less than sophisticated everyman to assist the scientists in their mission. In "Deep Contact" that everyman is Wataru, a petty gangster who thinks he's being pursued by some yakuza he owes money to. In actual fact he is being captured and taken to a secret facility run by Dr. Ohora and the beautiful and mysterious Ikuko, a psychokinetic mutant. When Ikuko orgasms she unleashes an almost supernatural ability to move objects, but the only hitch is that her orgasms have only come via masturbation. Yup, Ikuko, unlike so many of the other nurses and subjects in this secret facility, is a virgin. Dr. Ohora believes that Wataru not only possesses his own sexual psychokinetic abilities, but that he would be the perfect man to take Ikuko's virginity and in the process save Earth from certain destruction.

While "Deep Impact" suffered from being far too earnest and "Armageddon" ended up being totally bloated and over the top, "Deep Contact" comes off as being downright ludicrous. Kitazawa doesn't even attempt any kind of serious tone with his film. Instead he goes for high camp in scenes with Dr. Ohora yelling to a couple "Motto! Motto! Gambatte!" who are copulating on a gurney, the man wearing what looks like a metal collander on his head, a device that undoubtedly is designed to inhance his sexy ESP powers. In another scene Ohora and Wataru watch a blindfolded Ikuko masturbate and in the process levitate a thousand pound steel sphere into the air. The only thing is that the sphere is in fact an inflatable Pilates exercise ball spray-painted silver and hoisted into the air on a wire. The best is the comet itself, which looks like a ball of cotton batting set on fire. The performances given by the actors aren't anything more worthy than what you would normally see in a porn film, with the most impressive aspect of Kazushi Ikeda's performance as Wataru being his almost perpetual erection that sticks up like a tent pole in his baggy corduroys.

All this being said, can I recommend "Deep Contact"? Despite the lambasting I'm giving Kitazawa's film I'd have to say yes. "Deep Copntact" easily adavnaces into the it's-so-bad-it's-good territory of so many semi-comedic pink films that have been released by Los Angeles-based distributor Pink Eiga in the past couple of years. That being said if you are easily offended, either by sexual content or by less than stellar filmmaking techniques then you will definitely want to stay away. If, on the other hand you want a good laugh and nearly a solid hour of naked people fucking (with a sci-fi bent to it of course) then nothing will get you laughing more than "Deep Contact".