Noboru Iguchi would seem to be in the enviable position, at least to his mostly male fan base, of doing exactly what he likes and never having to grow up. A veteran director of low-budget exploitation films, Iguchi has an unabashedly adolescent obsession with short-skirted schoolgirls, spandex-clad superheroes, blood sprays and bathroom humor. His 2012 film "Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead" ("Zonbi Asu") is exactly what the English title sounds like.
And yet many of Iguchi's films, beginning with his 2008 international breakout "The Machine Girl" ("Kataude Mashin Garu"), have screened at foreign festivals and been distributed abroad, which is more than most of his serious indie counterparts have achieved. This naughty Peter Pan has a grown-up sense of how to keep his career going.
His new film, "Slavemen," would seem to another Iguchi exercise in wish fulfillment for developmentally challenged guys. The wimpy hero, Yasuyuki (Yuichi Nakamura), dreams of making films, but his waking reality is mopping floors, while living with his supportive, if much put-upon, sister (Chieri Ajioka). One day, this janitor/filmmaker and his colleague happen upon a porny photo shoot presided over by Kiryu (Ryohei Abe), a rich businessman's son who was once Yasuyuki's high school classmate.