There was more to director Ôshima than being one of the key figures of the Japanese new wave; by the mid-1970s he was still able to produce one of the most controversial films of all time. A graphic portrayal of insatiable sexual appetite, In the Realm of the Senses brilliantly – and graphically – merges politics and desire.
A reinterpretation of Japan’s most infamous sex crime, In the Realm of the Senses takes place in 1936 at a hotel in a Tokyo suburb. Kichizo, the innkeeper, leaves his wife to begin a torrid affair with one of his employees, a young woman named Sada. As the lovers retreat into their sexual fantasies, they discover a world of uninhibited indulgence, obsession and danger.