Woman on the Night Train

Woman on the Night Train
Theatrical poster for Woman on the Night Train (1972)
Directed by	Noboru Tanaka
Written by	Norio Miyashita
Starring	Mari Tanaka Keiko Tsuzuki Tomoko Katsura
Music by	Kōichi Sakata
Cinematography	Yoshihiro Yamazaki
Edited by	Akira Suzuki
Distributed by	Nikkatsu
Release date	July 19, 1972
Running time	71 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Woman on the Night Train (夜汽車の女, Yogisha no Onna^?) aka Night Train Woman is a 1972 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Noboru Tanaka and starring Mari Tanaka.

Saeko is abnormally attached to her older sister, Yumi. When Yumi becomes engaged to Arikawa, Saeko schemes to separate the two. She seduces Arikawa who then becomes confused over his attraction to both sisters. He approaches their father about his dilemma. The father explains that the two are actually half-sisters, Saeko being the result of his affair with Tomoko, a family maid. After Arikawa explains this to the sisters, Saeko's obsession with Yumi seems to end. However, when Yumi and Arikawa leave for a vacation together, Saeko follows them on the night train. When she catches up to them, she kills her sister with a razor blade and then kills herself.

During Woman on the Night Train's Japanese critics noted the influence of European filmmakers on Tanaka's style. The use of metaphor and symbolism in the film was said to be similar to some of Roger Vadim's films. Luis Buñuel's Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), and Octave Mirbeau's original novel were said to be particular influences on Woman on the Night Train.

In their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser give Woman on the Night Train a rating of three out of four stars. They judge the film's weakness to be the rambling and far-fetched plot, but they write that this is compensated for by Tanaka's visuals and camera work, which they call, "some of the best in any pink film". They also note the welcome influence of French cinema on Tanaka's style. They single out the flashback scene in which the father seduces the maid as indicative of Tanaka's visual flair. Rather than staging the scene in a mundane bedroom setting, Tanaka makes the seduction more shocking by filming it among the stuffy, professorial father's books and papers in his study.