Ryan McNeil
And then things got weird…
Takafumi Katayama is a mild-mannered man. His wife is in a coma, and he is left to care for their six-year-old son with his father-in-law pitching in. The difficulty of the situation must be weighing on Katayama, because his quest for solace sends him somewhere out-of-the ordinary. Specifically, it sends him to an S&M club named “Bondage” (try to act surprised), where he signs up for a very particular service:
Katayama will be approached by a wide array of Dominatrixes (Dominatracies? Dominatri?), each with a particular talent. He won’t know where or how they will appear, but he when they do, compliance is, of course, a must.
If this story seems completely off-the-chain (pardon the metaphor), I assure you, it is every bit as nutty as it seems. Besides the situations we watch Katayama submit himself to, and his reaction to them, there are a few scenes dropped in for punctuation that give the whole film a higher amount of absurdity. Full credit for the film’s success needs to go to comedian/director Hitoshi Matsumoto. The film requires us to go along with some truly weird and wild situations, especially when the various Domnatrixes (seriously, is that the plural?) show up. The film stands on a very narrow ledge, and any misstep would send it tumbling.
Happily, Matsumoto has an amazing sense of balance, allowing us to reap the rewards.
Like many Midnight Madness films, any thoughts on R100 need to be taken with a slight grain of salt. This particular brand of insanity was consumed with a full-house of like-minded movie-lovers well after bedtime on a schoolnight. I say this to underline that the atmosphere in the room certainly helped me hoot and howl at all of the depravity on display. Thus, for optimal results, gather some friends and uncork a bottle or two.
What jumps out about R100 is the way Katayama is happy to go along with the depravity so long as it suits his own needs, but the moment it turns on him he wants to bail. In this instance, it’s a professional relationship, so one should be able to terminate the contract, but on a larger scale, one has to pause and consider how quick we are to move on from someone once our own needs have been fulfilled.
On an amusement level, what sticks out is the way each Domme comes with a particular set of skills. One doesn’t consider such things of course – you’d think that being submissive comes without variety. The fact that each woman shows up and has her own special way with Katayama gets increasingly amusing.
R100 may not go on to become one of the great genre films, but for one midnight in September, it was top-drawer entertainment.