Bloodwank Teruo Ishii may never be regarded in the same exalted terms as fellow Japanese cult heroes like Norifumi Suzuki or Koji Wakamatsu (though to be fair much of his work remains pretty rare), but he was certainly no slouch, a solid and stylish contributor to many genres. The Joy of Torture is probably the best I've seen from him so far, the start of his eight strong ero guro series. An anthology film indicting Edo era savagery, while not especially graphic its a classy and even moving work with some memorable scenes. The first story is the weakest of the three, seeing a woman driven to desperation and aberrant love by her injured brother. Interesting enough but little developed, it's a set up that would have benefited from a full length treatment or at least greater levels of emotional intensity, high melodrama should have been the style but its actually relatively subdued. Still good stuff though and its theme of love binding characters to their doom leads nicely into the next story, a tale of nuns driven wild with lust for a neighboring monk. This one really ups the ante, with escalating hysteria mounting into interesting torture scenes and bloodshed, including a hilarious use of loaches. The best is saved till last though, a dedicated tattoo artist seeks to create his finest work by watching the torture of Christian missionaries. This segment combines interesting obsession with the most protracted torture scenes of the film, lots of beating, wheeling, burning and so forth of a multitude of screaming semi naked ladies to unsettling yet undeniably erotic effect. Plus the close is (relatively speaking) pretty upbeat. So its a decent mix, but at the same time somewhat flawed. Some inconsistencies nag, most notably the aforementioned slightly flat opening story. The film is thematically inconsistent too, flitting from the tragedy of love to the mania of excess to the excess of torture, taking in the harshness of social strictures, cruelty of individuals and passion of torture along the way. Although the stories are united by recurring torturer Nambara and his (relatively) nice guy assistant, there's a slightly scattershot feel to the general critique that detracts from the overall effect. The social justification is a tad cheesy as well, which wouldn't be a bad thing but the film is exploitative enough to seem hypocritical while not exploitative enough to be hilarious in having higher pretensions. There isn't much gore either, but then its still fairly strong for its time. Altogether still a very worthy film, nudity, nastiness, solid plotting and beautiful cinematography, definitely worth a watch for vintage Japanese exploitation fans.

The_Void The Joy of Torture is apparently a part of a trilogy of torture films. It's the first one I've seen so I can't compare it to the other three; but it's certainly an interesting and well made film in its own right. The film is divided into three separate short stories and, as the title suggests, they are all about torture. While I did enjoy the film on the whole; I do have to say that I'm glad it was split into three rather than featuring just one long story as there's only really so much that can be done with this idea and the fact that the story changes three times means that the film stays fresh for the duration. The first story focuses on a brother and sister. The brother becomes ill and the pair end up having an incestuous relationship, which leads to her being tortured as incest is against the law. This is a well acted and well filmed little story and the focus is mostly on the drama between the pair. The torture and gore doesn't turn up until the end and the 'romance' between the brother and sister is not exactly heartfelt. Still, it's a decent opener.The second story focuses on a familiar exploitation location - the Church, and focuses on the love between a nun and a priest, which naturally doesn't go down too well. This is another strong story, although the focus of it is a bit too similar to the first one with it focusing on a forbidden love. The third and final story is undoubtedly the best of the film as it tries to do something a little different from the first two. Rather than tell a story and depict the guilty parties being tortured; this time we focus on a great tattoo artist who decides that he wants to make his masterpiece on the back a young girl. He wants to paint a torture scene and in order to do this, gets himself an invite to a live torture chamber. Before the title credits we get to see a woman have her head cut off and body cut in half; and on the basis of this, I was expecting something really gory and so was a bit disappointed. The only extended scenes of torture happen in the final story and while well done; the film isn't the hardcore exploitation that I was expecting. Still, this is a good film and it's recommended to fans of this sort of stuff.

EVOL666 I'd been holding on to this one for a month or two now, and just finally got around to checking it out. Though I liked YAKUZA LAW: LYNCHING! (one of the later films in the series), I was not too impressed with INFERNO OF TORTURE, so I let this one lay on the back-burner for a while. Big mistake. This, the original JOYS OF TORTURE film, is definitely one of the more notable entries in the pinku-style ero-goru films - especially for it's 1968 time-stamp. Like several of the other JOYS OF TORTURE films, and also like it's "unofficial" sequel, SHOGUN'S SADISM (which many don't realize WAS NOT directed by Ishii and is not a "true" part of the JOYS OF TORTURE series), this film is told anthology-style, with three tales that center around...oddly enough, torture.The first story involves an incestuous brother and sister couple where after the brother's suicide, the sister is put to death for her refusal to deny their "relationship". The second tells of some power-hungry and corrupt nuns - one of which becomes obsessed with a monk and tortures him and his "girlfriend" because of her jealousy - until the constabulary finds out about the nuns' goings-on, and kills them all for their misconduct. The last installment is about a tattoo artist who is intent to create a master-work of torture-art on a young lady's back, and uses a friends position as an interrogator to gain access to witness the torture first-hand...I have to say that I enjoyed JOYS OF TORTURE as much as I did Makiguchi's SHOGUN'S SADISM, thought it isn't quite as gory as that particular film. What JOYS lacks in gore compared to SHOGUN'S SADISM(though don't get me wrong, there's still a good bit for a film from 1968, and tons of torture on display...), it surpasses in terms of storyline. The acting and sets/set-pieces are all very well done, and the cinematography is beautiful and crisp. A must-see for pinku/Japanese exploitation film fans...9/10

HumanoidOfFlesh "Shogun's Joy Of Torture" is the first part in Teruo Ishii's so-called "Tokugawa Series".This episode is set in seventeenth century Japan,when members of the Tokugawa clan ruled the country with fear and terror.Punishment for those who broke the rules set by the Shogunate was brutal and severe."Shogun's Joy Of Torture" tells three terrifying stories about guilt,crime,and punishment.The film is loaded with some truly shocking torture scenes,so some unprepared viewers will be offended.Women are decapitated,burned alive,beaten,whipped or torn in two by oxen.The production values are high,the cinematography is polished and the soundtrack is moody and sad."Joy of Torture" spawned seven sequels from Teruo Ishii.All of them are truly sadistic spectacles of violence and misogyny,so fans of Japanese exploitation should check them out.9 out of 10.