JustMeMike’s New Also on Video

Rio Natsume - Rio Bravo (November 20, 2008)
Line Communications/I-One
Catalog # LCDV-40343 - Region 2 Disc - 4:3 Aspect - MPEG-2
Running Time: 60 minutes

Nearly 50 years ago, in April of 1959, Academy Award winning director Howard Hawks released a Western or cowboy movie called Rio Bravo. It starredJohn Wayne as a Texas town Sheriff who has locked up a bad guy on a murder charge. The bad guy’s family hires a score of thugs. They intend to bust this guy out of the local jail no matter what.

Wayne as Sheriff John T Chance has just a few people to help him: an old geezer (Walter Brennan as the comical Stumpy), a young gun (Ricky Nelson as Colorado) and the drunken deputy (played flawlessly by Dean Martin as Dude). The female ‘love interest’ was played by Angie Dickinson as “Feathers”.

This film was an interesting character study about how a few good men could, would, and did stand up to a gang of ruthless and evil men. Hawks was nominated for and was given the award for Best Direction by the Director’s Guild that year.

This film might be considered slow moving and/or boring by many based upon today’s standards of testosterone filled action sequences of explosions, car chases, and bullet shell casings being expelled from a weapon in slow motion . Instead, this is a thinking man’s Western. The action comes sporadically. The movie is quite long (two hours and twenty minutes) but at the heart of the movie is the bonding of the heroes and how each of them met and faced their own particular demons.

It has been written somewhere that having Dean Martin’s character Dude climb out of the bottle and face his nemesis (alcoholism) by pouring his shot glass of whiskey back into the bottle, is one of the most redemptive movie scenes of all time. While many claim that this movie is nearly the perfect western - I’ll step down a notch from that lofty statement and say that it is very good and is worth your time.

And speaking of perfection,  I’ll use this an opportunity to launch my review.

The Skinny: The career of the fabulous Rio Natsume keeps steaming along. She’s been on the Idol track ever since her first DVD, Pure Smile, was released by Takeshobo in June of 2003. Well received then by legions of admirers, it is now more than 5 years later, and apparently there’s no end in sight. The big shots of the major idol video production houses in Japan are still rolling out Natsume DVD’s; and doesn’t that make us happy!

Over the more recent years, Rio’s output has been a few steps away from the straight bikini-ed babe on a beach genre. Oh, she’d still play on a beach, or trot out more than a few bikini’s, but it seemed like she’d take a chance and release DVD’s that were more ‘arty’ than straight gravure.

In this release Rio Natsume has finally stepped into adulthood. Though she is only 23, in most of her prior releases, she looked younger (facially) then her true age. And when she went for the glamor, or vamp. quite often she looked like a kid dressing up in grownup’s clothes. For sure she had the figure for it, but she just couldn’t pull it off. Now she looks like a grownup. I won’t be able to call her ‘everyone’s favorite  young niece’ any more.

This DVD has a very nice tempo and feel to it. Rio is very willing and comfortable showing off as much of her body as she can given the restrictions of the gravure idol genre. So it’s a real pleasure to find Rio on the beach as the main chapters begin. She’s never been much of a runner. She swings her arms to much, and given the hefty weight of her chest ornaments, it’s no wonder she tires easily. But that was then - in this video, her endurance is much improved. After running she’ll tease us by building the huge mounds of sand that she will then crush with her imposing bust.

Two finds her in a small indoor swimming pool. She wears a muted orange bikini and it’s a pleasure to watch her climb in and out of the pool. Sometimes the camera is placed above as she climbs out and we look down into her cleavage. Or at other times there’s a cameraman in the pool so we can look up at her butt as she climbs out of the water.

Three  is poolside. Rio wears a red scarf over her massive breasts a la Miri Hanai. I’m sure this scarf is taped to her boobs, but she still has to be somewhat careful about her movements.

Four begins with Rio pumping up a beach ball. It is the only thing that needs something added in the scene. Rio’s bikini top is very well filled out thank you.  How about an equation: large beach-ball + busty girl = ? And the answer is bouncing busty girl! We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. But with Rio as the one bouncing it is quite enjoyable.

Nurse Rio is next, and she has treat for us. She listens to our heartbeat with a stethoscope. The she asks us if we’d like to listen to hers. Of course we would because she’ll have to open up her nurse outfit to expose her beautiful bra encased breasts. And then we do hear her beating heart. I mean actually.

Six begins with Rio indoors in a large room. She’s twirling a lengthy satin ribbon. We’ve seen Mikie Hara do this and we’ve seen Yoko Matsugane do this. But neither of those models wore a clingy top like Rio does in this scene. Her boobs are really accentuated.

Next is a Rio Natsume trademark scene. Yes it is the shower scene. Here Rio wears a fabulous lace bra and panties set. The bra is very deeply cut, so it seems like most of those her huge boobs are going to be on display as she soaps and rinses. This is truly a beautiful scene to watch. I’m calling it the best scene in the whole DVD.

Back in the bedroom is next. Rio wears a small sundress over her bikini, but the dress comes off quite soon. We hear a lot of birds chirping in the background. The scene is basically Rio posing for us on the bed. Pretty much a standard for gravure DVD’s. Except that when Rio is posing, you must throw out the word standard. Our girl will untie the bikini top , and lower the strap, so she has to hold the bikini top against her bust with one hand and arm lest we see those Natsume moneymakers uncovered. She applies a lotion to make it even more enticing.

Bunny-esque Rio shows up in a men’s club next. First she is asked to help out by making some whipped cream. She’s presented with the cream in a mixing bowl so we watch her whisk away. The she’s called up on stage to do a bit of pole-dancing for us.  While this scene wasn’t bad, it is the weakest one in the video.

But they remedy that very quickly with a stirring scene on the beach. Rio wears a dark knit bikini that sets off her butt and boobs quite nicely as she poses first in front of some rocks, and then as she rolls around in the sand.

The last scene follows with Rio back in bed. The scene could be subtitled seduction as that’s what Rio is doing - seducing her fans. It works quite well, as the lighting is low, and the setting is romantic. Rio plants a nice kiss on us(the camera lens) to close out the scene. There’s a four minute coda which has Rio talking to us as she signs a tee-shirt, walks back from the Okinawan beach, sits on the bathtub ledge, and so forth.

Summary: Almost a perfect five, but we’ll bring this one at 4.75. I thought that the bunny-scene was definitely not on a par with the rest of the DVD. Rio has never looked better, or more mature. She’s still only 23 but she has really blossomed in this DVD.

I strongly recommend this DVD. Her fans should love it, and if there’s any one who is reading my columns who is not familiar with Rio Natsume - then this is the perfect DVD to start your collection with.

Vendors:
cdjapan
Amazon.co.jp

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 7:26 am and is filed under Reviews, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.