Bastoni: The Stick Handlers (2002)

A behind-the-scenes spoof of the Japanese adult film industry, the pun in the title of Kazuhiko Nakamura’s Bastoni: The Stick Handlers (2002) is most definitely intended. Absurdist in tone, the film chronicles the backstage travails of Yamaguchi (Shunsuke Matsuoka) and Natsuki (Yuka Kojima), a husband-wife team who ply their trade by having kinky and copious sex on screen. When Natsuki decides to take a break to rear her child, Yamaguchi is floored to discover that his wife has befriended a prissy ex-girlfriend who left him years ago because of his involvement in porn. Director Nakamura is thankfully immodest about treating his subject matter with a candid gaze, offering glimpses of Kojima and costar Amiko Kanaya that wouldn’t be out of place in a legitimate adult film.