simply an exercise in cinematic sadism, and dismissed any claims of a message behind the mayhem. Allmovie similarly notes of the film, "any point which Rape! 25-ji Bokan may have is lost in the barrage of sickening violence". Director Hasebe denied any intention of allegory on his part, claiming that he did not use cinema in this way. He suggested that if such messages were in the film they had come from screenwriter Chiho Katsura and producer Ryōji Itō. Jasper Sharp also gives the film a negative appraisal, calling it the poorest of Hasebe's films that he discusses in his Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema. He dismisses the film as a "preposterous red-blooded macho fantasy" which is little more than a series of attacks on women, and writes, that the final scene in which the two rapists are attacked by the vigilante gang, "almost seems like an apology for the onscreen outrages committed in the name of entertainment". Sharp describes the film as a kind of "buddy movie" made for men who claim to be attracted by women, but are more comfortable with other men. According to Sharp, the film trivializes the psychological effects of violence on women to a ludicrous degree, showing the victims enjoying the attacks to the point where one actually gives her attacker money, and asks him to return. 10kbullets.com also judges this aspect of the film—in which the victims come to enjoy their assaults—to be quite disturbing. Set pieces which stand out, according to Sharp include car chases, fistfights, and the ballerina's rape, set to the music of Swan Lake, with pillow feathers flying around the nude woman as if they were snowflakes. Availability Rape! 13th Hour was released theatrically in Japan on January 22, 1977. The film had not been released on video at the time of Yasuharu Hasebe's 1999 interview with Asian Cult Cinema. The director stated that it might be the film's controversial nature which caused the studio to hold back its release. Once released on videotape, it became a popular item. It was released on DVD in Japan on September 21, 2007, as part of Geneon's ninth wave of Nikkatsu Roman porno series. This release employed a new master struck from the original negative, with scratches and flaws corrected. Extras included the original theatrical trailer and a four-page booklet. English subtitles were not included on