Cheesy and juvenile, "Pink Lady No Katsudou Dai Shashin" (Lit. The Pink Lady's Big Picture) attempts to be fun and irreverent (shades of the Beatles "HELP!" or the Monkey's "Head" but it doesn't work. Stars Mi and Kei are likable enough but their charms can't save a film riddled with unfunny skits, cheap and campy sci-fi effects and "Sid and Marty Krofft"-styled high-jinks. It's a pure vanity project that falls flat in its efforts to make the Pink Lady more than just Jpop 70s idols.
During the late 70s, the Japanese Pop duo of tall, short-haired Nemoto Mitsuyo(Mi)and long-haired Masuda Keiko (Kei) otherwise known as the "Pink Lady" were the reigning princesses of the Japanese music scene.
With their good looks, disco-inspired dance choreography, catchy-ABBA inspired songs they dominated much of the Oricon Japanese Top 40 charts from 1976-1979 and gained a dedicated legion of fans (the so-called "Chameleon Army" named after one of their songs).
They were Japan's first true idol group sensation and influenced generations of future JPop singers, imitators and groups such as Wink, BaBe, W (Double), Onyanko Club, Morning Musume, AKB48, Halcali etc. Their bubbly, beat-oriented, fluffy music was in sharp contrast to the somber, folk-song styled, adult rock/Kayokyoku songs of contemporaries like Yamaguchi Momoe.
Their hit song such as "S.O.S.", "Peppa Keibu", "UFO", "Wanted", "Monster", "Tomei Ningen" and "Nagisa No Sinbad" are nostalgic Japanese Karaoke standards and have been covered by other Japanese artists.
Pink Lady were one of only two Japanese artists to have reached the American Billboard Top 40, hitting #37 with the single "Kiss in the Dark" (the other being Kyu Sakamoto with song "Ue O Muite Aruko/Look Up and Move Forward" AKA Sukiyaki).
The Pink Lady may be familiar to some American audiences from their disastrous short-lived 1980 NBC TV variety show "Pink Lady & Jeff", which was co-produced by Sid & Marty Krofft (the men behind such 70s kiddie shows as "H.R. Pufnstuf", "Lidsville", "Land of the Lost" and "Lost Saucer" among many others). With their giddy girlish mannerisms, broken English and amateur acting, awkward renditions of American 70s disco songs, the show was painful to watch and thankfully ended after only a couple of episodes.
1978 is seen as their "miracle year" as they were at the peak of their pop stardom and also saw the release of this their only theatrical film.
This Toho movie boasted a stellar cast featuring many recognizable Japanese film stars such as Ishidate Tetsuro, Tanaka Kunie, Tanaka Ken, Nabe Osami and Sato Gajiro. It was also written by talented screenwriter "James" Miki who would later go on and write a number of well known NHK dramas like "Mio-Tsukushi", "Dokuganryu Masamune" and "Aoi Tokugawa Sandai".
Yet with such talent on board it is surprising how awful the film is. A complete mess no thanks to director Kotani Tsugunobu (The Last Dinosaur) who tries unsuccessfully to craft a movie along the lines of Michael Schultz's equally terrible Bee Gees vanity film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (also 1978) which weaves a silly story around the featured musical scores (and sometimes even literally re-interpreting the songs).
The main "Pink Lady" story involves Ishidate Tetsuro as a hyper-active producer and Tanaka Kunie as a bumbling film director trying to come up with the "ultimate movie" for the Pink Lady (who play themselves). Ishidate and Tanaka come up with a trilogy of stories which they try to pitch to the Pink Lady over the phone (the stories are re-enacted for the benefit of the audience).
The first story is a sappy romance drama which has Mi and Kei as rivals for the affection of a handsome businessman, the second story is a wacky sci-fi spoof which has the Pink Lady encountering a pink baby monster at a traveling circus and trying to help the little monster go back to his UFO to return back to his homeland while protecting him from a trio of dumb villains (a spiteful clown, a short stature trainer and a "Gaijin" ringmaster). Along the way, the Pink Lady get stuck aboard the monster's UFO and get turned into "Tomei Ningen" (invisible girls) in which they use these powers to play silly pranks on unsuspecting lecherous guys.
The third story features Mi and Kei as Can-Can girls in a small western town who must team up with a clumsy sheriff to fight off a group of outlaws.
Intertwined amidst the stories are concert footage of Pink Lady singing all their hit songs on stage in front of screaming crowds.
While it pre-dates Olivia Newton-John's "Xanadu" by a couple of years, it's just as awful at trying to incorporate the Pink Lady's song and dance act into a dramatic storyline. What we get is one long boring music video (and not a very good one either). Kotani must have had the Monkees TV show in mind as this film seems like it belong to there. It's also ironic how some of the film resembles a Sid & Marty Krofft show too as three years later they would team up with the duo.
This film is primarily a curio piece for Jpop fans and bad-film aficionados and will test the patience of everyone else with its hopelessly loopy story and terrible overacting.
During the late 70s, the Japanese Pop duo of tall, short-haired Nemoto Mitsuyo(Mi)and long-haired Masuda Keiko (Kei) otherwise known as the "Pink Lady" were the reigning princesses of the Japanese music scene.
With their good looks, disco-inspired dance choreography, catchy-ABBA inspired songs they dominated much of the Oricon Japanese Top 40 charts from 1976-1979 and gained a dedicated legion of fans (the so-called "Chameleon Army" named after one of their songs).
They were Japan's first true idol group sensation and influenced generations of future JPop singers, imitators and groups such as Wink, BaBe, W (Double), Onyanko Club, Morning Musume, AKB48, Halcali etc. Their bubbly, beat-oriented, fluffy music was in sharp contrast to the somber, folk-song styled, adult rock/Kayokyoku songs of contemporaries like Yamaguchi Momoe.
Their hit song such as "S.O.S.", "Peppa Keibu", "UFO", "Wanted", "Monster", "Tomei Ningen" and "Nagisa No Sinbad" are nostalgic Japanese Karaoke standards and have been covered by other Japanese artists.
Pink Lady were one of only two Japanese artists to have reached the American Billboard Top 40, hitting #37 with the single "Kiss in the Dark" (the other being Kyu Sakamoto with song "Ue O Muite Aruko/Look Up and Move Forward" AKA Sukiyaki).
The Pink Lady may be familiar to some American audiences from their disastrous short-lived 1980 NBC TV variety show "Pink Lady & Jeff", which was co-produced by Sid & Marty Krofft (the men behind such 70s kiddie shows as "H.R. Pufnstuf", "Lidsville", "Land of the Lost" and "Lost Saucer" among many others). With their giddy girlish mannerisms, broken English and amateur acting, awkward renditions of American 70s disco songs, the show was painful to watch and thankfully ended after only a couple of episodes.
1978 is seen as their "miracle year" as they were at the peak of their pop stardom and also saw the release of this their only theatrical film.
This Toho movie boasted a stellar cast featuring many recognizable Japanese film stars such as Ishidate Tetsuro, Tanaka Kunie, Tanaka Ken, Nabe Osami and Sato Gajiro. It was also written by talented screenwriter "James" Miki who would later go on and write a number of well known NHK dramas like "Mio-Tsukushi", "Dokuganryu Masamune" and "Aoi Tokugawa Sandai".
Yet with such talent on board it is surprising how awful the film is. A complete mess no thanks to director Kotani Tsugunobu (The Last Dinosaur) who tries unsuccessfully to craft a movie along the lines of Michael Schultz's equally terrible Bee Gees vanity film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (also 1978) which weaves a silly story around the featured musical scores (and sometimes even literally re-interpreting the songs).
The main "Pink Lady" story involves Ishidate Tetsuro as a hyper-active producer and Tanaka Kunie as a bumbling film director trying to come up with the "ultimate movie" for the Pink Lady (who play themselves). Ishidate and Tanaka come up with a trilogy of stories which they try to pitch to the Pink Lady over the phone (the stories are re-enacted for the benefit of the audience).
The first story is a sappy romance drama which has Mi and Kei as rivals for the affection of a handsome businessman, the second story is a wacky sci-fi spoof which has the Pink Lady encountering a pink baby monster at a traveling circus and trying to help the little monster go back to his UFO to return back to his homeland while protecting him from a trio of dumb villains (a spiteful clown, a short stature trainer and a "Gaijin" ringmaster). Along the way, the Pink Lady get stuck aboard the monster's UFO and get turned into "Tomei Ningen" (invisible girls) in which they use these powers to play silly pranks on unsuspecting lecherous guys.
The third story features Mi and Kei as Can-Can girls in a small western town who must team up with a clumsy sheriff to fight off a group of outlaws.
Intertwined amidst the stories are concert footage of Pink Lady singing all their hit songs on stage in front of screaming crowds.
While it pre-dates Olivia Newton-John's "Xanadu" by a couple of years, it's just as awful at trying to incorporate the Pink Lady's song and dance act into a dramatic storyline. What we get is one long boring music video (and not a very good one either). Kotani must have had the Monkees TV show in mind as this film seems like it belong to there. It's also ironic how some of the film resembles a Sid & Marty Krofft show too as three years later they would team up with the duo.
This film is primarily a curio piece for Jpop fans and bad-film aficionados and will test the patience of everyone else with its hopelessly loopy story and terrible overacting.