花と蛇 (1974)

Curiosità

Flower and Snake a.k.a. Flowers and Serpents (1974) is a Japanese pink film starring Naomi Tani, directed by Masaru Konuma and produced by Nikkatsu. Based on a novel by Oniroku Dan, Japan's best-known author of sadomasochistic (S&M) fiction, Flower and Snake was the first of Nikkatsu's Roman Porno films to deal with an S&M theme. Together with the later Wife to Be Sacrificed this film is credited with starting the S&M Roman Porno series which helped save Nikkatsu from financial collapse during the 1970s.

Production

In a very successful effort to avoid bankruptcy, Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest major film studio, had entered the pink film, or soft-core pornography, genre three years earlier, in 1971, with its popular and critically praised Roman Porno series. However 1974 was proving to be another difficult year for the studio, with no real box-office hits.

Since the late 1960s, Naomi Tani had been known as the "Queen of Pink," the most popular actress in the low-budget, independent "pink films" which dominated Japan's domestic cinematic market. Nikkatsu had been trying to recruit Tani into their Roman Porno series for years, but she had always refused since the studio had been reluctant to enter the S&M genre, which was Tani's specialty.

Nikkatsu agreed to Tani's conditions, but there remained the problem of convincing Oniroku Dan to allow the studio to film his novel. After lengthy, inconclusive negotiations, Dan invited director Masaru Konuma and scriptwriter Yozo Tanaka to his home for "further discussions." In the middle of the meeting, the electrical power suddenly went out, and Dan called for someone to light a candle.

Director Konuma and script-writer Tanaka both agreed that Dan's novel was unfilmable, and made significant changes to the story. Dan and Naomi Tani both objected to this, and there was considerable friction between the two sides over the story during the writing of the script. Konuma later commented about Naomi Tani's role in this matter, "while we worked on the final script, she was very argumentative.

After the film became a huge hit for Nikkatsu, the studio wanted to follow it with a sequel. Dan remained bitter and did not agree to participate in the next film, Wife to Be Sacrificed (1974), which became even a greater success. Dan did reconcile with the studio however, and continued to have a strong professional relationship with both Nikkatsu and Naomi Tani.

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