Overview: Play it Cool is a chic and erotically charged drama starring popular Japanese singer of the day Mari Atsumi as a college girl negotiating her way through the male-dominated hierarchies of Tokyo’s seductive but treacherous nightclub culture.

Yumi (Mari Atsumi) is a pretty fashion student who shares a cramped home with her mother Tomi (Akemi Negishi, The Saga of Anatahan) and good-for-nothing stepfather Ryoichi. Tomi works at a local hostess bar and hopes for a better fate for Yumi. When Ryoichi violently forces himself upon her blossoming daughter, Tomi is not afraid to take action to protect her, an act which lands her in jail.

Left to fend for herself, Yumi is taken in by her mother’s former place of employment, where she finds herself fighting off the unwanted attentions of the men who swarm around her. Then one day, a rescue by handsome former lawyer Nozawa (Yusuke Kawazu, Cruel Story of Youth) from a vicious gangster seems to offer an escape into an altogether glitzier world, albeit one that turns out fraught with similar dangers.

Arrow Films is proud to release this little-seen gem by one of Japan’s most highly regarded directors of the 1960’s, Yasuzō Masumura (Giants and Toys, Irezumi), a filmmaker known for his social satires and powerful portrayals of women, as Play it Cool is released for the very first time for the home video market outside of Japan in a brand new high-definition transfer.

4K Blu-ray Verdict: Essentially a story of compromises and horse-trading, not with four-legged animals but young women, the prettier the better when it comes to boosting night-spot takings, this under the radar film might well have escaped your attention thus far, but now it is out on crystal clear Blu-ray via Arrow Films, do not let it for much longer.

Yumi takes after her mother, a jaded staff member in a less-than-salubrious hostess bar, but theirs is a complicated relationship. Mother wants what’s best for her daughter as she certainly doesn’t want her to follow in her own footsteps, but a sudden change of circumstances dictates otherwise.

From this point on, Yumi makes as much money as she can while pissing off her co-workers who don’t appreciate her left field tactics. But she’s not hurting anyone. In any case, it’s her unaffected straightforwardness that makes her doubly attractive to middle-aged businessmen.

Through it all, Yumi has to deal with challenging situations and while she’s a strong woman, she’s no Scorpion for she can only rely on her wits while trusting to luck.

And thus she makes a late-stage decision that is shocking and baffling – at first. She’s her own person and sometimes it’s better to wipe the slate clean and begin again than it is to persist with a fatally damaged relationship.

I thought this might veer too much into exploitation territory but I needn’t have worried because while Masamura and Ishimatsu deliver a melodrama with tawdry elements, they give us a central character with admirable traits who does what she does in order to get by (while helping to ensure a loved one is always well looked after).

Bonus Materials:
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original uncompressed mono audio
Optional English subtitles
Brand new audio commentary with critic and Japanese cinema specialist Jasper Sharp and professor and Japanese literature specialist Anne McKnight
Too Cool for School, brand new video essay on Play it Cool and the career of writer-director Yasuzō Masumura by Japanese film scholar Mark Roberts
Original theatrical trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella
Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Earl Jackson

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