“The Mourning Wife” is the latest offering from the great
folks at Pink Eiga. Directed by renowned pink director Daisuke Goto. The film
itself is a take on the classic 1981 film-noir “The Postman Always Rings Twice”
which starred Jack Nicholson & Jessica Lang and adapted by the ultra
talented David Mamet.
Let's start this review off by saying I was leery at first
about this film. I'm a huge film-noir buff and a big fan of the original 1939
novel. So I was curious to see how all of the themes of the book would jell
with a Japanese adaptation. Moving the location from California to Japan
actually worked very well.
I was expecting your typical pink film when I started
watching this but this film surprised me. That's right, this isn't your typical
soft-core film. It's a well acted, superbly directed sensual Japanese
film-noir. The icing on the cake is Masahide Iioka's gritty cinematography. The
visuals alone bring back the feeling of Kinji Fukasku's crime films from the
70's.