Who Was That Tattooed Lady?

I wrote a review a while ago at the old blog of the 1983 Nikkatsu/Dan Oniroku film Snake Pit (Hebi no Ana, aka Snake Hole) starring Shima Izumi. In the review I mentioned that an opening scene of that film had been used by the producers of a movie called Shocking Asia II.

Hebi no Ana

Theatrical poster

I had actually seen Shocking Asia II before seeing Hebi no Ana so it came as quite a surprise, you might say even a shock, to actually see where this remarkably erotic scene had come from.

I've since wondered if the people behind Shocking Asia II (which came out in 1985) had got permission to use the footage or if they somehow got hold of it through other means. They have quite a lot of footage from Japan in both their Shocking movies and now I'm thinking very little, if any, of it was actually shot with their cameras.

But that's not the subject of this post. One of the scenes at the beginning of Hebi no Ana is what I'd like to talk about. Here's what I wrote previously:

"One scene showed a woman hoisting herself up by her ankles completely naked in a candlelit dungeon. Once she was hanging upside down, she proceeded to tie her upper body tightly with rope. The scene continued with hot wax being dripped on her ornately tattooed back."

At the time, I didn't know the lithe, tattooed lady was Hana Mai, a real-life SM practitioner who is still active today. She first started performing in live shows with the legendary Osada Eikichi after meeting one of Osada's show partners. From there, she started doing films and working at Nakano Queen as a mistress using what she had learned from Osada sensei.

Her first film was for Shin-Toho, Bondage of a Wet Tattooed Body  (濡れ肌刺青を縛る) which came out in 1982 and was directed by Watanabe Mamoru.

In those days, there was a highly exclusive (read: expensive), underground (literally) members-only SM salon known as SAMM in Roppongi. Many of the big names of the day such as Dan Oniroku, Saotome Hiromi and Osada Eikichi were associated with the club. It was at SAMM that Hana Mai was discovered by a honcho for film company Shin-Toho and her acting career was launched.

Director Watanabe first dubbed her "Hana" Mai. Before that she was simply known as "Mai".

She says she got the idea of doing self-bondage one day when everyone was waiting for Osada's arrival. In order to keep the horny customers happy, she stripped, got on stage, and performed a solo routine.

Since then, Hana Mai hasn't slowed down. She is still active as a mistress today in the Kansai area.

Update: There is a new page at the Japanese SM database SMpedia which confirms that this scene in the Nikkatsu film Snake Pit was actually shot at SAMM. Apparently, the club was also used as a backdrop for some television dramas back in the day. It also seems that other films I have seen might have been shot there.

SMpedia is in Japanese. The sister site is Nawapedia but, unfortunately, most of the juicy information in Japanese has yet to be translated into English for Nawapedia.

Full disclosure: I assist with the running of Nawapedia where I can and am always on the lookout for translators (J -> E) so if you can help, or know someone who can, please contact me. You can do so at the Nawapedia homepage. There is a link at the top to contact the Administrator.

Nikkatsu DVD available at Amazon Japan 
Shin-Toho film available at DMM