AFI Award-Winning Cinematographer Christopher Doyle to Shoot Japanese Softcore Porno Musical

I don’t know what exactly Christopher Doyle was thinking, but needless to say, you will be able to enjoy an aesthetically mindblowing Japanese sex musical film shot by him come winter 2010. According to a press release by German film distributor Rapid Eye Movies, the Hong Kong-based cinematographer–who has won the Cannes Technical Grand Prize, Golden Osella, the Golden Horse awards (four times), and the Hong Kong Film Award (six times)–will work on the upcoming production of Shinji Imaoka‘s Underwater Love.

Principal photography begins June 25 and will end on July 1 in Tokyo. The film will be co-funded by Rapid Eye Movies and Japanese production company Koukei, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

A Japanese pinku film, for those of you not in the know, is according to Wikipedia “a style of Japanese softcore pornographic theatrical film” which “dominated the Japanese domestic cinema from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s” until “the appearance of the AV (adult video) took away most of the pink film audience.” So: Japan’s version of Boogie Nights, kinda. Due to censorship restrictions though, genital display was usually a taboo, often covered in scenes by props like lamps, candles, or bottles. Huh.

Lest you dismiss the film as low-brow stuff, let me inform you of the production’s other credentials. One of the so-called “Seven Lucky Gods of Pink,” director Imaoka (who you might recall made classics such as Despite All That / Sopping Wet Married Teacher: Doing It in Uniform and Mighty Extreme Women aka Uncle’s Paradise) has won Best Director at the Pink Grand Prix and was given a career retrospective at the Tokyo Athénée Français in 2000 which broke the institution’s past attendance records. Moreover, Screen International correspondent Jason Gray reports that Midnight Eye editor and published film critic Tom Mes had a hand in the screenplay. This is cultured stuff, folks. It’s a musical, after all.

Plus, worse come to worst, the boobies will at least be framed beautifully.

(via Twitch; title image via dishum dishum)