| Will is a tattoo artist obsessed with his imprisonment and torture as a Vietnam War POW. Will earns his living tattooing Southeast Asian women who have been purchased and imported to work in a local Oriental bordello. Will creates distinctive tattoos covering each woman's entire back and shoulders. The tattooing process is painful and reinforces the women's submissiveness -- a part of bordello training. The bordello's customers find the tattoos artistic and stimulating. Then Will meets Lily, a new arrival ... The branding by tattooing depicted in this film does happen. Rather than being purchased, Oriental women sometimes are lured from their villages with false promises of legitimate employment, then are kidnapped and forced to work in bordellos or for private owners. Distinctive tattoos mark the women as slaves who are shunned by Oriental society -- a de facto form of bondage. Branding by tattooing [or (less often) by actual thermal branding] sometimes occurs in United States' society. More often, women are bound by indebtedness [e.g., (boyfriend's) vehicle loan payments and credit card payments] and several hungry young children in an economy offering few other opportunities. |
Akin Art / Movie movies, videos.