However, when it comes to perverse, exploitative wackiness, no country is second to Japan. Wet Rope Confession exemplifies this idea.

It's not as artistic or beautiful as Norifumi Suzuki's School of the Holy Beast, but it ranks high when it comes to perversity and sleaze.

When Mikki (Yuki Nohira) is brutally raped on her wedding night, her husband rejects her. He allows the rape, the burglary and the theft to go unreported because he's worried about how it will make him look. Never mind how he's going to explain to his friends, family and coworkers why he's single the day after his wedding....

Distraught and alone, Miki wanders to the highest precipice she can find and hurls herself to the rocks below... only to be rescued by a priest.

The priest offers her what her husband would not: forgiveness. Actually, forgiveness of sins has been one of the strongest tenets of Catholicism. This core belief is perhaps the most influential aspect of Catholicism in attracting converts.

The Church offers Mikki a chance for redemption and the opportunity to begin again -- a new life as servant of God. She enters the convent immediately.

She is introduced to the nun in charge who is filling in for the bed ridden Mother Superior. Nunsploitation fans will recognize this as a sure sign something is amiss....

Like in other films of the genre, (Walerian Borowczyk's Behind Convent Walls for example) when the Mother Superior is away, the nuns will play!

Yes, my friends, in the true nunsploitation fashion, all is not what it seems....

Mikki quickly discovers that the nuns are far from pious. The entire nunnery seems to be founded on lust. Nuns can't go five minutes without either masturbating with any long, rigid object within arm's reach or carpet diving with their neighbor.

When they're bad, they get whipped by the freak. Yes, what nunnery is complete without a freak to clean the toilets and whip the novices?

Mikki finds solace in the chapel. It's not like anyone in this convent prays, so it's a good place to be alone. There, she meets a wounded mobster who has taken refuge in the convent.

Mikki's medical training kicks in and she bandages his wound. She takes to sneaking off in the middle of the night to bring her patient food and change his bandage. Nobody notices because everybody in this convent is sneaking off in the middle of the night, although it's usually with a partner.

Mikki is followed by another nun, Sister Maria. I know what you're thinking. "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" The mobster knows! He rapes her! Maria is so gratified for being raped, she keeps his secret.

Yes, this is one of those bizarre movies where women enjoy being raped. It's like that old joke:

Two nuns are walking down an alley at night. Two guys jump out and start raping them. The first nun looks to heaven and says, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they're doing." The second nun looks up and says, "This one does!"

The movie ends with the most bizarre finale I have ever seen, and considering all the nunsploitation movies I've watched, that's saying something.

Up until now, the priest seems to be a decent person. After all, he did save Mikki's life. Maybe he doesn't know what's going on in the convent?

Yeah, right. He's as whacked as everyone else..

He invites Mikki to play the part of the sheep in the St. Animal's Day Party. No that's not a bad translation because if you listen, they say it English.

Now, I challenge anyone to sit through this movie without even once saying "What the fuck???" The St. Animal's Day Party is just bizarre. Mikki, the lamb, is auctioned off to the highest bidder. For his high bid, the winner gets the honor of ... any guesses? ...raping her! Again....

For their participation, and sizable cash donation, the rest of the party gets to fuck the nuns -- all of them. A massive orgy ensues and the St. Animal's Day Party turns into a chorus of moans and grunts.

Mikki runs off with the mobster, proving one thing -- this girl sure knows how to pick 'em! First, the callous doctor who won't let her report a rape because it will make him look bad. And now the fugitive rapist mobster, because he's somehow better....

Wet and Rope has everything a nunsploitation fan could want -- beautiful women, a perverse priest, a nunnery full of lesbians and wickedly deviant finale...

I found the movie delightful to watch. Yuki Nohira is actually a capable actor with a stunning body and beautiful expressive eyes that instantly communicate terror, delight, shock or fear.

There is never a dull moment in this film. It doesn't go five minutes without someone being raped, whipped, or seduced.

Despite the bare bones DVD [I watched], this movie is thoroughly entertaining. If you are a fan of the genre, you will love Wet Rope Confession. Watch it with our recommendation!

It's true, the nunsploitation genre was alive and well in Europe in the late 70s, lecherously leering at the dirty habits of its cloistered Catholic subjects in numerous quasi-blasphemous wank fantasies such as Behind Convent Walls (Interno di un Convento, Walerian Borowczyk, Italy 1977), Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (Die Liebesbriefe einer Portugiesischen Nonne, Jesus Franco Swi/Ger 1976) and even Sister Emanuelle (Suor Emanuelle, Giuseppe Vari, Italy 1978) all tracing a common root back to Ken Russell's once shocking The Devils (UK, 1972). However, aside from being merely an alternative to such standard softcore backdrops as the woman-in-prison milieu into which to slot in the required scenes of nudity, flagellation, lesbianism, torture and degradation, films such as these, being primarily the produce of heavily Catholic countries or directors can be at least explained away in terms of their smirking anti-clerical intentions, simultaneously goading the moral minority and praying on the subversive fantasies of their potential audiences.

Wet Rope may be another case of taking a European sub-genre and relocating it Eastwards to a setting in which religion has never played as repressive a role in affairs of the State as it has, for example, in Italy or Spain. However, it is not the only Japanese example of the sub-genre (there's also Masuru Konuma's 1976 pinku Cloistered Nun: Runa's Confession (Shudojo Runa No Kokuhaku) to name but one), and as with Michio Yamamoto's Orientalist take on the Dracula myth, Lake of Dracula (Chi O Suu Me, 1971) the resulting cultural discordance in populating such a European exploitation staple with an all-Japanese cast is as perplexing as it is intriguing. One thing Ohara's film is certainly not, however, is boring.

A young newlywed is raped on her wedding night and dismissed by an unsympathetic husband for not doing enough to protect her virtue (this was all whilst he was simultaneously occupied with being beaten up and bound by her assailants, by the way). About to hurl herself seawards from a high cliff, she is talked out of her suicide by a priest who invites her to seek refuge at a nearby nunnery. However, life inside the convent doesn't seem much easier than outside and its not long before the sexual humiliations begin all over again.

Softcore sex may take up a disproportionately large amount of Japanese cinematic output compared with that of other countries (in terms of films made for the cinema, as opposed to the Adult Video market), yet it takes up an even larger proportion of the number of Japanese titles being released in the West at the moment. Whilst academic film critique seems loathe to look beyond the golden years of Ozu and Kurosawa, a large number of the stuff being put out on DVD and video recently seems content to merely tap into the rich vein of high production-value porn which kept companies like Nikkatsu in business throughout the 70s and 80s. Our interpretations and prejudices regarding Japan and the nature of its culture are primed to some degree by the choice of films which are available for viewing, and with Japan's cinematic middle ground still firmly ignored by distributors over here at the moment Westerners are inevitably more likely to form their opinions from such disparate genres such as hentai manga or Roman Porno than more typically anodyne fare such as the Tora-San movies.

So whereas I personally am happy to see any Japanese film being brought to a wider audience, if stereotypes of the Japanese as straight-faced sexual sadists are being perpetuated, it is down to companies such as Japan Shock Video, whose marketing strategy seems to ignore the cultural or historical context of the films they currently have on release in favour of dressing up their produce in some of the most salacious and exploitative packaging currently on the market. It may be true that their other releases such as The Mermaid in the Manhole and Guts of a Virgin DO actually deliver the blood and tits that they promise, but in this particular instance the film is belied by it. Wet Rope has its moments, but none of the stuff here is any stronger than the any of the other Nikkatsu films of the time currently available in Europe, and Japan Shock Video could do with taking a look at Anchor Bay or Pagan Film's marketing strategy with their in-depth sleeve notes and voice-over commentaries and some INFORMATION about the film they are trying to sell.

For instance, a scene from the film which is shown in long shot of a gangster who is hiding in the convent having a bullet removed from his arm is misleadingly portrayed in bloody close-up in the still on the DVD's packaging. Likewise, the chapter stops have names such as 'Masturbating Nuns', 'Twisting Nipple' and 'Whip Punishment', yet nowhere within the whole package is the film's original title or release date mentioned. The English language title Wet Rope as it appears on the DVD main menu (which also features an option called, 'Trallers' sic) is written as the nonsensical 'Wet & Rope' on the cover packaging. As for the film itself, one of the stronger sex scenes is fogged, no doubt from the original release print, and the less said about the half-hearted subtitling the better.

Still, to describe this film as a mere catalogue of exploitative set pieces wouldn't be wholly inaccurate. As with the Italian produce of its time, plot structure, subtext and characterisation take a back seat to throwing as much shit against the wall that some of it is bound to stick. But the joy of Wet Rope lies far beyond the whipping and the Sapphic encounters of its convent denizens; it's the sheer silliness of the colourful attempts at bridging these scenes which won me over. The quirkily retro 70s interior decor of the room in which a nun has fun with a guy who has just picked her up is more likely to stick in your mind than the softcore fumblings that take place within it, and who could forget the winning scene in which two sisters gyrate to a wakka-wakka soundtrack with a couple of wide-collared hoods in a local disco complete with spinning glitterball. The convent comes equipped complete with its own torture dungeon and token mute idiot who bites at the nuns legs if they get a little too frisky, and the antics of St Animals Day will have you chortling in disbelief.

As with all Nikkatsu produce of the time, the production values way overshadow those justified by the film's actual content and technically it is far better made than any of its European counterparts with the costumes, sets, colourful lighting and crisp cinematography all worthy of an airing on DVD. It's just a shame that its distributors have such little confidence or respect for their own product because I have a feeling here that they are more likely to turn away potential viewers than win any new converts to the cause. Wet Rope doesn't feature half as much as sex and sadism as Japan Shock Video would have us believe. It does however feature a climax in which a man in a plastic mask makes love to a woman in a sheep costume on an altar in front of a roomful of copulating oriental nuns. Now surely Japan Shock Video should have been able to come up with something better out of that?

Sacriligeous perversion in the extreme in this entertaining slice of nunnery pokery. It's all here - masturbation, whipping and disco dancing in this often hilarious and absurd genre movie where nuns seem to have more fun than us poor folk out in the real world. Guaranteed to annoy the religious community no end with amongst other things - nuns tied to the crucifix and begging to be whipped, a new take on 'sheep shagging' with local businessmen bidding to sire a nun dressed up as a sacrificial lamb while the rest of the convent indulge in an orgy, the list goes on.

Obviously inspired by the nunsploitation films of old, 'Wet & Rope' carries it off in convincing style with a nice euro feel in Ohara's italian style direction complete with matching (though minimal) keyboard soundtrack. Not really being a big fan of this particular genre I was pleasantly surprised (as well as highly amused) at how enjoyable 'Wet & Rope' really is.

The disc contains a nice widescreen print with a dolby 2.0 soundtrack. There are optional English and German subtitles that, although not translated perfectly, do the job well enough. There's also the usual selection of Japan Shock trailers that make great eye candy (I must check out Girl Hunter and the EDT discs!) But for bonus chuckles just check out the excellent chapter titles for the film which include 'Masturbating Women', 'Whip Punishment', 'Twisting Nipple' and 'Dancing Nuns' amongst others - it truly is a case of 'say what you see'!!

So, a must have for any fans of the nunsploitation genre and an excellent way for newcomers to test the water in this particular scene (and if anything, you'll have a great laugh checking out some of the more absurd moments along the way!) Another fine release from Japan Shock - lets hope they keep them coming!