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Forbidden Zone

Scout Man

Masato Ishioka

Japan2001 125min 35mm color

Synopsis

Masato Ishioka takes his camera to the streets. And on the streets, he meets up with those who are on the forefront of the AV(Adult Video) business, the Scout Men. The ones who would ask bluntly, Are you interested in AV? to anyone they meet on the streets. The biggest virtue of Scout Men is its effort to show the reality as objectively as possible. Thus avoiding the traps of sensationalism that the subject matter can have. The unemployed hero and heroine, Atsushi and Mari become a scout man and a party ticket salesperson, and set foot in the desire industry. But the city of Tokyo, which is flooding with semen, demands endless pleasure from them. Atsushi faces the harsh realities of the industry when meets Miki, an AV model. His lover, Crippled Mari who sells tickets to money-ridden sex parties, falls under its vicious cycle. < Scout Man >, is by no means an exploitative film. But it is very revealing in its portrayal of the Japanese sex industry. The portrayals of the sex industry in this film are not mere spectacle, but an inescapable reality. And that's where the movie's strength comes from. The director's main influences are- the leader of direct cinema Frederick Wiseman, the legend of Japanese documentary industry Ogawa Shinsuke, and Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami. (KIM Hyung-seok)

Diretor

Masato Ishioka

Born in 1960 in Shizuoka Prefecture. Graduated from Meiji University, with a major, in Politics and Economics. He started making short films on super 8mm during his senior year at the university. He then came to know an Adult Video director, Tadashi Yoyogi, whose video works had a tremendous impact on him. < Scout Man > marks his first film.