LOVE-ZERO=INFINITY is now the third film I've seen from notorious pinku director Hisayasu Sato, having previously viewed the somewhat hard-to-follow yet still stylish and interesting SURVEY MAP OF A PARADISE LOST, and what has come to be one of my all-time favorite splatter films, NAKED BLOOD - and the more material I view from Sato - the more I'm convinced he's some sort of mad genius. I can't say that I always understand everything that's going on in his films, and although most pinku and splatter material is typically "mindless entertainment" - I think that Sato's works are the types of films that will need repeat viewings to fully grasp.
LOVE-ZERO follows a strange drifter who is hired by a doctor to spy on his wife, which the drifter does, and they begin a sexual relationship. Turns out there's been some killings going on, and the wife is suspected of being a sort of modern-day vampire seeking vengeance for a medical experiment that left her with a strange skin-condition, a thirst for blood, and allowed blood contaminated with AIDS out into the general public. The relationship between the drifter and the "vampire" becomes obsessive, and of course has an inevitably dark end...
The problem that I find with both SURVEY MAP and LOVE-ZERO, is that the films are too short to squeeze all the elements in to make the films fully cohesive. Sato notes in the DVD commentary that most of the pinku films that he shot had to be cut to 65 minutes per studio guidelines, and that LOVE-ZERO was especially hard to fit into that time-frame, because even after the initial edit, the film was about 90 minutes long. I feel that Sato's films have a lot of "depth" to them that many pinku films are missing - but this also makes it hard to squeeze all the pertinent elements into an hour-long feature. Sato's styling is typically dark and kind of monochromatic - with a "washed-out" look to all of the films that I've seen that fits the bleak story lines. The sleazy pinku-style soft-core sex is hot-and-heavy in this one and is a definite plus. Sato is a director that I'm definitely going to be seeking more material from. LOVE-ZERO is not a perfect film, same with SURVEY MAP, and for the same reasons - not enough "explanation" in the 65 minute run-time. I know that Sato has the potential to put out a great film, because with the slightly longer run-time of NAKED BLOOD, he showed what he could really do with an interesting story (and a good bit of nasty gore). Neither SURVEY MAP nor LOVE-ZERO serves up the gore that will come later with NAKED BLOOD - but all three are dark films that should be checked out by pinku or underground film fans, or fans of Sato's work in general...8/10 for LOVE-ZERO=INFINITY
LOVE-ZERO follows a strange drifter who is hired by a doctor to spy on his wife, which the drifter does, and they begin a sexual relationship. Turns out there's been some killings going on, and the wife is suspected of being a sort of modern-day vampire seeking vengeance for a medical experiment that left her with a strange skin-condition, a thirst for blood, and allowed blood contaminated with AIDS out into the general public. The relationship between the drifter and the "vampire" becomes obsessive, and of course has an inevitably dark end...
The problem that I find with both SURVEY MAP and LOVE-ZERO, is that the films are too short to squeeze all the elements in to make the films fully cohesive. Sato notes in the DVD commentary that most of the pinku films that he shot had to be cut to 65 minutes per studio guidelines, and that LOVE-ZERO was especially hard to fit into that time-frame, because even after the initial edit, the film was about 90 minutes long. I feel that Sato's films have a lot of "depth" to them that many pinku films are missing - but this also makes it hard to squeeze all the pertinent elements into an hour-long feature. Sato's styling is typically dark and kind of monochromatic - with a "washed-out" look to all of the films that I've seen that fits the bleak story lines. The sleazy pinku-style soft-core sex is hot-and-heavy in this one and is a definite plus. Sato is a director that I'm definitely going to be seeking more material from. LOVE-ZERO is not a perfect film, same with SURVEY MAP, and for the same reasons - not enough "explanation" in the 65 minute run-time. I know that Sato has the potential to put out a great film, because with the slightly longer run-time of NAKED BLOOD, he showed what he could really do with an interesting story (and a good bit of nasty gore). Neither SURVEY MAP nor LOVE-ZERO serves up the gore that will come later with NAKED BLOOD - but all three are dark films that should be checked out by pinku or underground film fans, or fans of Sato's work in general...8/10 for LOVE-ZERO=INFINITY
