“Maniac Driver,” Kurando Mitsutake’s tribute to classic Italian “giallo” sex-and-splatter flicks, arrives at a moment when Japanese theatrical films, from indies to mass audience fare, shy away from the sort of explicit sexual content once considered a big draw.
Also, the giallo subgenre has declined since its peak in the 1970s, best reflected by the films of directors like Dario Argento and Mario Bava, and a similar trajectory was followed by the “pinky violence” films Toei churned out in the ’70s. Films with titles such as “Sex & Fury” and “Porno Jidaigeki: Bohachi Bushido” once flourised here but have since vanished from theaters. It’s not that sex no longer sells in Japan, but it long ago migrated to the AV (adult video) sections of video shops and is now rampant online, just as it is everywhere else in the world.
Mitsutake, whose previous films “Gun Woman” (2014) and “Karate Kill” (2016) were also genre outings with a retro feel, incorporates his influences with an undercurrent of black humor. He does this, though, without the meta jokiness found in other Japanese attempts at mixing Eros with action. One Hollywood parallel is Quentin Tarantino, though Mitsutake is working with a tiny fraction of his American counterpart’s resources. Shot in only five days, “Maniac Driver” is ragged around the edges with performances — especially by its professional AV actresses — that do not exactly plunge the depths.