Ren Yoshioka – Cara (January 29th,2009)
Digiworks/Cara Series
Catalog # – SUCA-29 – Region 2 Disc – 16:9 Aspect
Running Time: 61 Minutes

The Skinny: Looks like this was shot in one apartment. But it was a nice big apartment with a balcony and more than one floor. In fact you might look for a scene with Ren Yoshioka posing on the staircase. On the level below you see a guy sitting on a sofa sleeping. Maybe this was the boyfriend waiting for his lady to get done with work. Keep in mind that watching this video is anything but work for you viewers. In fact it is an pleasant experience but as the DVD plays you will be wishing for more space.

The montage clocks out in a few ticks over two minutes. And how shall I say it – the montage is notable for its unusual angles and smartly placed light sources. It’s all new and all good.

Chapter one/scene one has Ren posing then sitting on a window ledge.  Looks like apartment buildings are the view. Ren wears a green knit over an orange bikini. That green top stays on just for the first song. Ren is tall and curvy, and you won’t mind that the small space restricts her movements because the camera moves around nicely. You’ll notice the technique of camera movement and video cuts. But This scene runs about 8 and half minutes encompassing three songs which was a tad long for the small space. Check out the red leather sofa which makes it digital debut about halfway through the scene.

Navy and white are the colors of Ren’s striped play-suit in the next chapter. She’ll begin near the railing of the floor above and work her way down some of the stairs. It is in this scene that we briefly see the guy downstairs, who may or may not be Ren’s b.f.

There he is in the extreme lower right part of the picture. It’s not a big deal but I thought it was kind of funny to see a guy in the video who seemingly wasn’t interested enough to even glance at the model.

Three finds Ren on another leather sofa in front of another window. Ren wears a shirt white button sweater over a red bra trimmed with white lace and white polka dots. Ren plays much more alluring in this chapter. However the actions of both model and the camera are so much like the first two scenes that I was wishing for something different. Also I thought the camera work was a little spotty in this scene as knees and shoulders aren’t that attractive.

Four has Ren out on the fire escape in the building’s central air-shaft. We also see big ac units, pipework, ducts, and the like. Let’s call the set industrial chic. Ren wears a zippered pink dress over her bikini. Soon she will work her way out of the dress. While some of the angles were great, especially when Ren poses on a ladder briefly. But this is the 4th straight scene confined to a small space.

But in this scene Ren will remove her bikini top, and keep herself covered with her hands and arms, so we finally do get a small change in style.

In the next chapter Ren wears a woolen knit cap, a large scarf and panties. We’ve seen this style of costume before. Rio Natsume, Miri Hanai, and Hitomi Kitamura have all employed this style. Again we are troubled by some poor shots of knees and shoulders. Ren has a playful look on her face throughout.

The manufacturers of two-sided tape love this type of scene. As the scene closes, Ren is seated. She’ll bring her knees up to her chest then she removes the scarf from around her neck and holds it up in front of her..

Five has Ren in a black low-cut dress which accentuates her gorgeous bust. But for most of the scene she’s laying on the floor covered with tatami mats. The dress does come off leaving Ren in bra and panties.

She does get up on her hands and knees to show off her butt. The reality was that this scene was kind of dull. You can only be intrigued by the lighting for a short time. Unique angles do help.

Six is shot in a room with low lighting. Ren holds some sort of movable vertical light bar and uses it as a prop for awhile before it is discarded. Ren wears a white bikini.

When the camera pulls back enough we can watch Ren on the bed. She really has a great body. And once more she will remove her bikini top.

Seven is a shower scene. It appears that someone off-screen manages the water flow. It isn’t much of scene mostly just falling water – no soap of any kind. This is the last of the main chapters, and when the scene ends, the timer shows that 56 minutes have passed.

The last five minutes include Ren talking to us for two minutes [see comment about this shot below]and the rest is some behind the scenes from the some of the chapters. Basically, these are simply views of Ren posing and a photographer giving her instructions.

Of course, as you can see from these last shots, that Ren is beautiful, but there’s nothing notable about these behind the scenes shots other than seeing the photographer flat on his back on the stair landing shooting up at Ren.

Summary: A DVD with a couple of major plus points – she’s a very pretty girl with an impressive figure and video had some interesting lighting and angles. Those are the high-points.

On the other hand, each scene is confined to a small space so there’s not enough motion or action by the model nor could there be. In fact, in 56 minutes of video, I’m sure that Ren has walked no more than four or five feet. She also said not a single word until the main chapters were over.

When they did give her a chance to talk about her experience in making this video, this was the single time in the whole video that the lighting was bad, so we didn’t get a good look at her  [I added brightness so you could see - in the video it is much darker]. So I’ll score this one at no more than a three point zero. The point is you’ve got to do more than ask the model to simply turn this way and that way for 56 minutes while shooting her in a series of confined spaces. Or open up the area of where you are shooting otherwise your video will be confined and limited no matter how beautiful the model is.