In the Realm of the Senses poster & wallpaper

Aoi Nakajima, Eiko Matsuda, Meika Seri

n 1936, in the midst of rising Japanese militarism, a former prostitute, Sada, goes to work as a maid in a brothel. The house's handsome owner, Kichizo, soon begins to court her, and Sada eagerly retu...( read more  read more... )rns his attentions. Their subsequent affair grows more and more intense until their sexual obsession threatens to destroy them both.

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68% liked it

4,168 ratings

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82% liked it

28 critics

NC-17, 1 hr. 48 min.

Directed by: Nagisa Oshima

Release Date: January 1, 1976

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DVD Release Date: April 25, 2000

Stats: 341 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (341)

  • her69eyes
    May 16, 2009
    her69eyes
    Here we have the #1 film not to see on a first date.

    "In the Realm of the Senses" is widely believed to be one of the most controversial films of all time. It was banned from most places when it was first released, and to this day there are still places across the world where it...( read more) is not permitted to be sold. The plot is a sensationalized version of the infamous story in which, in 1936 Japan, an ex-geisha woman wondered the streets of Tokyo with her dead lover's penis. The setting is perhaps the most important thing to understand about the film. When you consider that this story takes place in Japan under the militaristic regime, the film moves from being something completely appalling and pornographic to a film about feminism and unrestrained expressionism. It's a film about fighting taboos and societal expectation in order to attain true personal freedom.

    The film follows Sada (Eiko Matsuda), a young newly-employed prostitute. She must take the job to pay off the debts of her deadbeat husband. The owner of the brothel is Toku (Aio Nakajima), who is married to Kichi (Tatsuya Fuji), a businessman. Sada and Kichi begin an affair that revolves mostly around unrelenting passionate sex. Nothing is hidden from the camera - whether it be actual penetration or semen coming from a woman's lips. This, of course, is the matter to be discussed about the film. Where is the line between pure pornography and art?

    As Sada and Kichi grow more passionate, Sada becomes increasingly jealous and demanding. She tells Kichi that should he have sex with his wife again, she will kill him. Also, their sexual encounters become increasingly violent. Kichi, the submissive partner of the relationship, reluctantly allows Sada to strangle him while they make love. It's incredibly uncomfortable to watch the events unfold, and not because of the nudity. The simple progression of the relationship - from an "innocent" affair, to an absurd obsession, to a completely dark and violent relationship is horrifying. Finally, as was foreshadowed earlier in the film, Sada accidentally strangles Kichi to death during sex and then cuts off his penis with a butcher knife.

    I think it's safe to say that this film isn't for everyone. Those who accept the graphic nature of the material, however, will find it to be utterly engaging. The nudity and explicit sex is necessary in the film to show the passion between the couple. Hiding body parts in shadows or showing vague close ups of skin would not illustrate the love efficiently, nor would it be as effective of a message of freedom of expression. "In the Realm of the Sense" is perhaps the best film i've seen that I would never recommend to anybody.
  • flixsterman
    January 7, 2009
    flixsterman
    Fascinating tale of two lovers who become so obsessed with each other that it eventually consumes them. I lost count as to how many times this couple had sex but it was a LOT. If there ever was a film that could have benefited from a little 'product placement' of Viagra, this w...( read more)ould be that film.
  • rubystevens
    January 1, 2009
    rubystevens
    i don't think it's pornography, there is just too much sex. it got a little repetitive. lol
  • organgrinder136
    July 15, 2008
    organgrinder136
    an explicit but only okay erotic story about a woman that slowly becomes more and more obsessed with her sexual partner. she also gets more and more violent eventually resulting in... well... you'll see! all i have to say is "ouch!". worth a watch if you don't mind explicit sex i...( read more)n your movies. also it's based around a true happening in the 1930's
  • webalina
    January 20, 2008
    webalina
    Porn dressed up as art. This Japanese-made film tells the supposedly true story of a couple who are sexually obsessed with each other to the point of murder. While it's titillating enough in places (a very quick fellatio scene is here for example), it's actually kinda boring watc...( read more)hing these people have sex all the time. And once one of the main characters snaps towards the end, it loses all momentum it had. Yawn.
  • ElCochran90
    November 14, 2009
    ElCochran90
    "A girl like you can stab a man's heart without a knife, huh?"

    Ai no corrida (1976)


    Director: Nagisa Ôshima
    Country: Japan / France
    Genre: Drama / Romance
    Length: 108 minutes

    ...( read more)bucket.com/albums/ww125/ElCochran90/?action=view¤t=AinoCorrida.jpg" target="_blank">Realm of the Senses,Nagisa Oshima,Japan

    Ahhh, yes... the beauty of sexual intimacy, the great variety of sensations felt during the most beautiful act of love, the very emotions of the human being reaching an extreme point of pleasure. Ai no Corrida is the most cinematically graphic representation of a fully-developed study on human eroticism, but what is often confused with either a strictly pornographic film or with a fully perverted movie is actually an essay of political ideas depicted with extreme liberalism. Audacious and poetical Japanese director Nagisa Ôshima directs his definitive masterpiece, a controversial work of art of impecably explicit proportions that awakens the very human reactions of denial when sexual content is mercilessly displayed on the screen, a reaction that, ironically, people do not posses towards mindless, bloody and nonsense action films. Why is sex banned in a larger scale than violence? How far can cinema really go? To make such questionings, three more important questions have to be asked beforehand:

    1) How big is the envelope that this film has to push?
    2) Did the film actually pushed such envelope?
    3) Was there a significant purpose behind this?

    Based on a true story set in the pre-war Japan of 1936, a man and one of his female servants, who was once a prostitute and sought for work in a brothel as a maid, begin an affair. Their torrid relationship grows so strong and begins to be exaggeratedly based on obsessive sexual encounters that their emotional connection is completely erased and their respective lives are utterly threatened. Director Nagisa Ôshima won the Sutherland Trophy at the British Film Institute Awards. Tatsuya Fuji won a Hochi Film Award for Best Actor also in 1976.

    The film does not only take liberalist ideals to the most extreme level and parallels them with the influence of an imminent political war; it also shares some parallelisms with the real-life human condition. The sole premise of the film is absolutely fatal and terrifying, covering the tragic consequences of an uncontrollable obsession and contrasting them with extraordinary decisions, such as being part of a World War. In order to play a nostalgic role, the pace and the art direction beautifully decorate what seems to resemble a medieval Japan, where an ancient way of living has not been completely forgotten and erased. The performances are superbly desperate, and although the budget is noticeably ridiculous, it is one of the most controversial and scandalous films in Japanese history and of all time.

    Nagisa Ôshima directly questions the censorship moralistic measurements. It is interesting how Japan's filmmaking has been famous during the past decades because of the quantity of violence they usually have, not to mention their explicitness. Ironically, if a penis is briefly shown on screen, the film is banned in case such scene is not erased. The MPAA shares the exact same characteristics, where notable displays of violence such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and The Passion of the Christ (2004) receive an R rating, but films of harmless, sexually explicit nature like The Dreamers (2003) are immediately slapped with an NC-17 rating. Because of Japan's strict censorship policies, the film had to be shipped to France for development. Several countries confiscated the film as suspected pornography and several years had to pass in order to be released theatrically without any cuts.

    It may be flawed, but a wonderful visual style and a not-so-common artistic craftsmanship make up for them. To make such a powerfully sexual manifesto is an audacious task, and to do the homework of shocking audiences is not an easy accomplishment. The cinema of the 70s were subject to heavy censorship, but important pieces in the history of cinema were released and these were the ones that made audiences and censorship controls to actually question the subjectivity of art. It was the highest point of expressionistic surrealism that covered very important ideologies. Ai no Corrida has divided audiences, originating the eternal and rather senseless debate of porn versus art. However, the purpose of the film and the societal issues that it implicitly involves reached milestone levels. With an unnerving approach towards impulsive eroticism and a haunting cinematography, Ai no Corrida has positioned itself among the most horrifying and memorable tales of pre-war Japan, and it is much better than its sequel Ai no Borei (1978), which missed the original nature of this film and became more of a ghost story rather than the original intention of taboo extermination that Ai no Corrida represented. It answered the three aforementioned questions positively. Do you approve?

    91/100
  • ifeels1ck
    September 20, 2009
    ifeels1ck
    A beautiful tale based on true events of a deeply passionate and sadistic love affair.
  • ralch
    June 11, 2009
    ralch
    PAN AND SCAN. Sincera y poderosa en su exploración de una relación de amor obsesivo y erótico. La película tiene como mérito su falta de pudor al ser explícita y genuinamente erótica. El crescendo de la pasión, sin embargo, a veces se fuerza en la narrativa, al igual que algunas ...( read more)instancias sexuales. / Sincere and powerful in exploring an obsessive and erotic love relationship. The film has the merit of being unabashedly explicit and genuinely erotic. The crescendo of the passion, however, sometimes is forced upon the narrative, same as a few sexual instances.
  • ahhh1989
    May 13, 2009
    ahhh1989
    It broke my heart. I did love it, though I felt at times it felt a bit hollow.
  • Epicouros
    April 2, 2009
    Epicouros
    one theatre only after permission of police had in Greece this film .....

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