Apartment Wife: Affair In The Afternoon is a mix of marital drama and Roman Porno. The early 1970s Japanese picture is a nicely pacey affair- with twisting ‘n’ turning plotting, double-crossings, and candy-coloured lit softcore embraces. Here from 88 Films is a Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in a new bright and buoyant scan, a commentary track, and a few other things.

Apartment Wife: Affair in the Afternoon (Danchizuma: Hirusagari No Jôji ) is from the year 1971, and was released by studio Nikkatsu-  being the first Roman porno released by this oldest of all Japanese studios. It was directed by Shiga born Shōgorō Nishimura. Between the early ’60s and late 80’s he had an impressive ninety-nine feature lengths to his name- with most of these sitting in either the Pink or Roman porno genre- with titles like Affair At Twilight(1972), Gate Of Flesh (1977),  Lustful Light: Make Me Wet! (1981),  and Snake And Whip (1986).

The film runs at a few minutes over the hour mark- with the whole thing largely whizzy by, in a sordid if entertaining enough manner. We open meeting our married leads-  stay-at-home prim and proper wife Ritsukoi (Kazuko Shirakawa), and her emotionally flat salary man husband Ryôhei (Tatsuya Hamaguchi). It’s night time the pair are having sex, he’s pleasured himself and rolls off- she says ‘what Me’ he blunt says ‘I’m tired and stressed’.

The next morning rolls around, and  Ryôhei goes off to work to be belittled by his shaven-haired boss, and Ritsukoi has two visitors- her nosey across-the-hall female neighbour, who offers her a dildo after overhearing last night's activity by the tap she left in the flat. And a black-suited, wiry moustache and red scarf wearing salesman- trying to sell her adult productions

On his way home, Ryôhei gets picked up by his old school buddy/tousled-haired Yôko (Makiko Tsunoda) a cheeky chappie who seems to be doing rather well for himself selling sex-sound bound audio cartridges.

As things unfold Ritsuko gets tempered by breaking her mundane life- leading to some neat plot twists and turns, some blackmailing, and a fair few candy light-coloured fleshy encounters.

Both of our leads are fairly good, as is the rest of the cast. With a score that mixes urgent/horn-blasted jazz, to slightly more moody/ dramatic scoring. Yes, the initial plot/ set-up is somewhat cliched, but during its unfolding, we get a decent amount of twists/ surprises- with the balance of flesh and plot being just right.

This new region B features an HD scan of the film- this looks well-defined, featuring a good selection of crisp colours and tones. On the new extras side, we get two things. First up is a commentary track from Irene Gonzalez-Lopez- who is a Lecturer in Japanese Studies- this is a wonderful detailed, well-researched, and wholly interesting track. We find out the film was first released in Japan on November 20^th 1971. She discusses the opening scene pointing out the effective use of Handheld camera work, different light sources and different colours.  She discusses apartments in Japan, and when they were very much status symbols – touching on the different types, for example in some apartment blocks you’d only have just females or males in one tower. She talks about how many of the apartments of salary men were identical with the same doors, with similar furnishing/must-have household items. She discusses what was expected of Japanese housewives of the time.  She talks about how this film was hugely successful- with them going on to be twenty sequels- many of these directed by Shōgorō Nishimura- there was even an Apartment Wife computer game released in 1982.  She discusses lead actress Kazuko Shirakawa- who was at one point the queen of Roman Porno- she made her first film in 1967 and by 1972 she had appeared in two hundred films. She talks about the actress having a warm yet melancholic gaze. Later on chats about how Roman Porno is a very wide genre- taking in thrillers, dramas, horror and bio-pics- talking about how they are very much built around their female leads. She discusses some of the genre's tropes, and makes recommendations for other films to check out.  An excellent track, which I’ll most certainly be revisiting down the line.

Next, we have An Introduction To Roman Porno (14.09) which finds Mio Hatokai discussing the origins of the genre, key films, and of course the film to hand. And again this is most informative/ interesting- we find out the differences between a Pink and Roman porno film- the first are films released by independents, and the second is films released by studios. Between 1991 and 1988 there were 1100 Roman porno films released. She talks about the studios' template for each of these- they had to have a budget between 7.5 to 10 million yen, have a runtime of around 70 mins,  filmed in colour, with a shooting time of just a week, and a sex scene every ten minutes. She talks about how many of the staff of studio Nikkatsu left after the switch to Roman Porno, which for a long period of time was all the studio released. A most fascinating featurette.

It certainly is wonderful to see this release of Apartment Wife: Affair In The Afternoon, as it is such an important and key film in the Roman porno genre. Once again 88 Films provides us with a great print,  as well as the most interesting extras.