A LONELY COW WEEPS AT DAWN is one of the notorious 'pink' exploitation films made in Japan. I should note at the outset that I watched the version on Amazon Prime, shorn of all the sexual moments, but nonetheless I was surprised by what I watched: this is a 'proper' film with a real story and some surprisingly moving moments thanks to the strong levels of characterisation.
The film's exploitative premise is about an old senile farmer who enjoys pretending to milk his widowed daughter-in-law just like a cow. Of course there's exploitation present in the nude scenes as well as the sexual moments which occur later on in the production. However, the rest of the story is social drama and it works very well. The two main characters are lonely, one of them spiralling into madness and the other whose life is in limbo after her husband's death.
A LONELY COW WEEPS AT DAWN is low budget but effective in its depiction of rural life in Japan. The camera work is largely static but the performances are deeply realistic, and this film as a whole offers much more than just standard exploitation fare.
The film's exploitative premise is about an old senile farmer who enjoys pretending to milk his widowed daughter-in-law just like a cow. Of course there's exploitation present in the nude scenes as well as the sexual moments which occur later on in the production. However, the rest of the story is social drama and it works very well. The two main characters are lonely, one of them spiralling into madness and the other whose life is in limbo after her husband's death.
A LONELY COW WEEPS AT DAWN is low budget but effective in its depiction of rural life in Japan. The camera work is largely static but the performances are deeply realistic, and this film as a whole offers much more than just standard exploitation fare.