Some subjects have to be handled with definite care. Kinjite is a movie about sex trafficking, sexual assault, Japanese sexual mores and underage sex workers. It is also a Cannon Film, so you can be god damn sure it won't handle it with a tenth the care needed. In the first 6 minutes it has Charles Bronson rape a man with a dildo for hiring a 16 year old sex worker. The same sex worker that in its opening montage, it tries to convince you is really hot by showing off her legs and ass. A sex worker played by an actual 16 year old girl, and who is also a minor villain.
Did I mention that she's in a publicity still? That they advertised the movie with her? Cannon Films at their sleaziest. That's where the movie begins though. Charles Bronson plays Charles Bronson, here called Lt Crowe, a vice squad detective with the LAPD. They burst into a hotel room after racist threats to the Indian desk clerk and find a John with a 16 year old girl. He tries to attack Charles Bronson Crowe but gets beaten up by his stunt double for his trouble. At this point in his career, he was so old that even basic action scenes like hitting people or throwing groceries at a car were done by a stunt double. So expect lots of long shots or quick cuts for close ups.
Crowe wants the guy to sign a statement, under threat of continued beating, saying he buys little kids from a man named Duke. Duke is Crowe's sex trafficker nemesis, who manages to escape punishment because Crowe is pretty shit at his job. The john refuses to dish the dirt on Duke because "he'll blow the whistle on me". He's being charged with statutory rape, but ok, there won't be any follow up to what could be worse than that, because Crowe jumps straight to raping him with a dildo. We don't see him in the act of raping him, because the stunt double for Bronson probably had some concerns. But this is a thing that happens, before the six minute mark. This is in fact our introduction to, and this is very much citation needed, our hero. We get to hear his victims screams of agony. As he gets raped. By Charles Bronson. Our Hero.
It cuts to Crowe at home washing his hands. Several hours later. Gross. That's gross Crowe. What have you touched since you raped that guy? Anyway, he says he's not eating dinner because he's upset about the scumbags at work. I presume he means himself, the person that committed violent rape. His wife asks him whats wrong and he's like "I might have jeopardized my pension." You know, what with that rape and all. His wife doesn't ask what he did but says she knows he didn't lie, steal or do drugs, so "Someone probably just got your Irish up and you handled it extra-departmentally". He laughs and is like "Yeah...you know me" and he comments that she really knows how to cheer him. They kiss and go have dinner.
Got his Irish up. Got His Irish Up? GOT HIS IRISH UP?!
Let's leave aside the very real fact that this is a thing that police officers do, most famously in the Abner Louima case. That officer is in jail for thirty fucking years because that's a horrific thing to do to someone. This movie plays off sexual assault on an arrested man like its just him being a bit quick to get mad. You know, that Irish in him. The Irish part of him that causes him to just, you know, rape a guy with a blunt instrument. Probably causing severe trauma, oh that scamp. This is our hero.
Anyway, we're not even eight minutes in, so time to go to Japan to meet our *squints* other protagonist? Hiroshi Hada is at a class for fitting in with Americans. He's learning English and being told not to do Japanese things like bowing or talking about your bowels all the time. You know the Japanese, can't stop talking about their bowels with random people they meet. He's a Salaryman at one of the big Japanese companies that will surely own America any day now. He goes drinking and cheats on his wife regularly, while demanding she show greater deference. He says that his wife's Christian school filled her head with western fairy tales like "morality" and corrupted her mind. He has two young daughters. The younger one is a person while the older one is a stereotype. She rattles off shit like how her father is a man and therefore must be obeyed by his wife or how her sister must respect their culture more.
Hiroshi sees a girl get molested on a train and it really turns him on because he's awful. He excitedly tells his boss about it at a business lunch. His boss is like "She didn't enjoy it dude" and he's like "SHE TOTALLY DID AND ITS EXCITING" and his boss is like "What the fuck". This will become marginally important later, as he's being sent to LA for three years on a business assignment. Where Crowe is. Yeah...
So what is Crowe up to? He's taken Duke hostage at gunpoint. He forces him to drive to an empty field, forces him to swallow a Rolex whole and sets fire to his car, which explodes. Like a responsible cop does. Duke just got his Irish up you see. You know, his IRISH. Now I know what you're thinking: "Dear god, stop!" but aside from that you're thinking "Well at least he didn't rape this guy." Well he thought about it. In fact, he says that he would have sodomized Duke with the gold watch but he didn't want to get his hands dirty doing it. Our Hero. Almost two for two on raping suspects, because, uh...hard men doing hard things?
Anyway, since he just let Duke walk away after assaulting him and destroying his property, Duke is a bit steamed. A few days later he opens fire on the Deli that Crowe is eating at with his partner Rios, killing everyone inside. Everyone except Crowe and his partner. They brush themselves off and while their superior is like "WHAT IN THE FUCK IS HAPPENING" they're laughing and joking about it. Crowe then explains to the captain that he you know, forced a guy to choke down a watch and blew up his car. As one does in the Vice Squad. The captain is outraged and yells at him but this is an 80s movie. Can't have him suffer any consequences for his violent episodes. So he's like "Alright, get out of my office" like Crowe is some sort of mischievous scamp rather than a violent maniac that got a dozen people killed.
So anyway, Hiroshi Hada molests Crowe's daughter on a bus. Just grabs her by the genitals while he's drunk. He runs off the bus in time to avoid the race riot he just started. You know, after Crowe's daughter yells that an Asian man molested her and so nearby rednecks start beating up random Asian dudes in the area. He gets mugged and goes home to have sex with his wife. Aside from making Crowe hate Asian people for 15 minutes, this won't have any effect on anything. Yeah. The Japanese dude molests the violent, rapist protagonist's daughter and nothing comes of it. At all. Its a complete dead end.
Partly of course because Crowe's daughter is too racist to be able to give a description of him. They have to really work hard to get "He's a businessman" out of her because she's so unable to tell Asian people apart that she can't even remember even basic details about him. It all sort of faded into a generic yellow peril I guess. She only recognizes him later because of the logo on his suit. Yes, really. Oh and they use this to scaremonger about how there are upwards of 25,000 Japanese Businessmen in LA.
Dunn dunnn dunnnnnnnnn
The other reason of course that this goes nowhere, is that literally the only person upset in the police is Crowe. Crowe who almost got in a fight with a school photographer for taking his daughters photo at a swim meet and has been portrayed as old fashioned when he's not violently raping people.But Rios dismisses her getting molested. Its not like she was raped! The captain dismisses it even harder, with an added "So what? My nephew Stevie was touched by the priest at choir practice!". Sir. SIR. I hate to tell a police captain his job, especially after you call Crowe out on not wanting to take Japanese cases, but what in the holy fuck? I know the 80s was really bad on date rape, but are you guys all just blowing off molesting minors?! This is a crime. This is absolutely a crime.
Oh by the by, I found out that the actress playing his daughter was at most 15 at the time of this movie and you better believe Cannon films had her in a nearly see through top. Gross. Gross as fuck. They normally hire 18+ people to play minors because of their tendency to do this exact kind of thing so doing research after the fact has been not even remotely fun. This is some Brass Eye shit, I tell you fucking what.
So in case it wasn't obvious, this movie is trying to be lurid. Its using teens as eye candy (BLURGH) while talking about how people who are attracted to 16 year olds are bad. Yeah movie, I agree, let's start with the people behind your fucking cameras! Its called Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects because Kinjite means "Forbidden Hand". Except of course that its referring to a foul in sumo wrestling. So their box art with the naked person who I hope to god is at least 18, is next to a word referring to among other things, a fat dude pulling another dudes hair. Its about as well researched as anything else related to Japan, so hey.
Because this is a shitty, wannabe lurid movie the main plot is about the daughter of Hiroshi Hada getting abducted, raped, addicted to drugs and forced into sex work. I didn't want to make this a two parter, but there's too much to talk about and this is too awful to write about for 4000 words straight. We're only getting started on the anti-Japanese racism and I can't help but feel there was a nationalist bent involved in some of the violence against young Japanese girls. If this movie was about the Irish, it would be about how a gang lured an Irish girl into prostitution with potatoes. That's how bad this is going to get.
Ugh, part two coming soon, way too soon.
