Noboru Ando’s Chronicle of Fugitive Days and Sex (1976)

Following an attack on a business man he ordered, gang leader – historically he wasn’t a “proper” yakuza - Noboru Ando (Noboru Ando) has to go on the run. A process that consists of a lot of drinking, watching TV, and spending time at all of his many girlfriends’ places. Most of these women love Ando very much indeed, so he has to cope not just with proving his potency again and again, but also fending off various attempts from the various ladies to follow him on the lam.

As you may or may not know, before he became an actor, Noboru Ando was an actual criminal, clearly a darling of the Japanese yellow press, and just as clearly pretty damn awesome at building his own public mythology, like a John Ford western character gone mad. This isn’t even the first movie to dramatize the misadventure that earned Ando the prison sentence which in turn earned him his acting career, but it certainly is the first and only one based on the decision to turn the whole affair into a mix of standard yakuza tropes, some broad satire, and pinku style sex.

Directed by softcore auteur Noboru Tanaka, this puts a heavy emphasis on typically highly unerotic – and often very funny - sex scenes during which Ando does his very best not to move a single facial muscle. Does he enjoy the act as much as his writhing, moaning, love-sick partners do? He certainly ain’t telling. Also appearing are a “sexy”, hot dog based dance (not committed by Ando, because not even yakuzasploitation like this would be that cruel), tuberculosis jokes (I got nothing), and a climactic fight during which a very young looking Renji Ishibashi holds off the police while Ando attempts to finish a bit of spontaneous sex with a random partner. Which he doesn’t manage, so we finish on an indelible scene of Ando jerking off in a police car while cops look on, displeased. Again, I’ve got nothing.

If you’re of a certain mindset, this will make Chronicle sound like a slam-dunk of the weird and the wonderful – and I haven’t even mentioned the scene of Ando and Ishibashi walking a beach philosophising about being bacteria in the national host body. Indeed, when the movie is on point – particularly during its final twenty minutes or so – it is quite the experience of smut, absurdity and weird energy. But it is also slow, lacking in any dramatic progression or tension, and incredibly repetitive – watching Ando not moving a facial muscle during sex one time is great, watching this ten times causes it to lose a considerable amount of its lustre, so the whole thing is more than just a bit of a slog.

Still, the idea of the film alone is worth some mind space and time, and the moments when Chronicle of Fugitive Days and Sex is as bizarre as it promises to be make up for all that unsexy sex and scenes of watching characters watch TV, at least to a degree.