Shogun's Joy of Torture

Hello again world of blogging. I've strayed away from this blog for a while and I'm trying to get myself posting again. I have Blogger on my HTC Evo so hopefully that will give me more of an incentive to post here.
Okay so where to start on this movie... I found this flick on one of two sites I ran across that sell OOP (Out of print) cult movies. This one was found on www.cinema-de-bizarre.com. I also bumped into www.twistedanger.com from which I bought Ilsa: Shewolf of the SS. Both companies have a great product. The one from Cinema de Bizarre came in an amaray case with cover art and a simple title printed on the disc. Twisted Anger came in a CD case with a good amount of detail printed right on the disc. Both companies have some lead time on shipment (about 2 to 3 weeks) but the product is definitely with the wait in my opinion.
On to the actual movie. What's there to say about this? Honestly, not a whole lot. I got distracted by the internet part of the way through, so I was only half paying attention to it. That being the case, it still seemed like a long movie. Basically the movie consists of a few vignettes set in Feudal Japan which end in women being tortured for various reasons and men being murdered to mix it up. None of the stories are very compelling but on the same token they aren't the worst stories.
The special effects are not horrible for the time period (released in '68). Nothing tremendously graphic or overly believable. Pretty tame in light of some movies I've seen in my lifetime.
So what's so special about this flick? Not too sure. I think the fact that it was done in the late 60's means it's one of the earlier exploition flicks from Japan but I haven't done any research to confirm that.
Would I recommend Joy of Torture? Not really. There certainly have been better and more insane movies to come out of Japan since this movie, for example the Guinea Pig series. But I guess you have to start somewhere.