I’ve mentioned many times before that a ridiculous title is enough to get me excited about a film. Japan has to be the emperor of absurd titles. Often Japanese titles, especially those for pinku and Roman Porno flicks, are long, obnoxious and hysterically literal. I’ve dropped a lot of silly and offensive film titles in past articles and I might have even mentioned this one – White Rose Campus: Then Everybody Gets Raped, perhaps my all time favourite ridiculous movie title. It’s a rare event that these films live up to their exploitative titles. This is one such rare event; White Rose Campus is as insane as its name.

WHITE ROSE CAMPUS:
THEN EVERYBODY GETS RAPED
original title: Shirobara gakuen: Soshite zen’in okasareta
Japan, 1982, Kôyû Ohara

A group of schoolgirls have finished their exams for the year and are making a trip to the country with their teacher (Mayo Miyamoto). They pile onto the bus and sing an awkward tune together, unaware that two young men are planning to hijack the bus. The two young men enlist the help of an old janitor, who we witness shoving used tampons up his nose as a masturbation tool. While the teacher and students are at a rest stop, the three villains hide on the bus dressed as schoolgirls. Once the bus is on its way again, they reveal themselves and proceed to rape and humiliate everyone on the bus – except for the girls they deem “ugly” who are thrown off. They continue their path of destruction with no rhyme nor reason other than lust, until twists and turns appear in the film’s final act.

White Rose Campus is completely mad. If it weren’t for the tampon sniffing and schoolgirl fetishism, this could easily be mistaken for a Hong Kong Cat III of the likes of Daughter of Darkness (1993). By that I mean rather than being purely nihilist, White Rose Campus, like a Hong Kong Cat III, is also relentlessly juvenile. It wasn’t until about the half way point, with the ejection of the supposedly ugly girls, that I realised, spattered amongst the mean-spirited and brutal rape, was something that almost resembled a comedy – yes, this is a rape-comedy. The over the top execution, the head-scratching finale and the fact that everyone is a rapist (or at least every male) had me grinning as well as wincing. Japan is no stranger to mixing rape in with their comedy, but unlike something like the Molester Train series, White Rose Campus does it without goofy sound effects and mugging to the camera. This made for an uncomfortable and mind-melting viewing.

It’s hard to believe any country’s censorship board allowing the existence of something like White Rose Campus. Here’s a film with endless scenes of humiliation, a film where a teacher allows herself to be raped in place of a student, a film with spunk being vomited back up into the face of a rapist… really pleasant stuff, eh? If something like this was made in the US, it would have to be an independent film with a nonexistent budget. White Rose Campus, on the other hand, is a Roman Porno, produced by Nikkatsu. With a budget far larger than that of a pink film, White Rose Campus looks good and has a decent cast of actors at its disposable. This makes it all the more odd to watch as degrading acts are captured with nicely framed cinematography and realistic performances. Content aside, it’s a reasonably classy affair… except for an amazingly hammy and utterly inappropriate music score that I enjoyed thoroughly:


It’s been a while since I’ve seen a film so gleefully and unapologetically offensive. While it didn’t upset me and in no way got under my skin (the film was too cartoonish for that), I was certainly in repulsed awe of its manic and obnoxious portrayal of rape – something which, of course, should never be portrayed in a manic and obnoxious way. White Rose Campus: Then Everybody Gets Raped goes far beyond that of your usual Japanese nasty, and, weirdly enough, I can’t help but think there’s some intelligence behind it. Either way, it’s a film that won’t be forgotten fast.