Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture!

Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture!
Theatrical poster for Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! (1977)
Directed by	Noboru Tanaka
Written by	Akio Ido
Starring	Junko Miyashita
Music by	Jirō Takada
Cinematography	Masaru Mori
Edited by	Shinji Yamada
Distributed by	Nikkatsu
Release date	February 23, 1977
Running time	83 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! (発禁本「美人乱舞」より責める！, Hakkinbon Bijin Ranbu Yori: Semeru!) aka Torture! and From the Banned Book "Wild Dance of a Beautiful Woman": Torture! is a 1977 Japanese film in Nikkatsu's Roman porno series, directed by Noboru Tanaka and starring Junko Miyashita. Set during the Taishō period, it uses Nikkatsu's superior technical resources to create what Jasper Sharp calls a pink film-style "sumptuous festival of cruelty" portraying the artistic life of the photographer, writer and kinbakushi, Seiu Itō.

The life of the S&M-theme artist and author Seiu Itō is depicted in the film. His artistic life and Sadian philosophy, inspired by his torturing of his two wives and Tae, his favorite prostitute, are portrayed as shown in his journalistic writings. Tae is eventually driven insane due to Itō's attentions. The movie stars Junko Miyashita as Tae.

Because of the film's more overtly sado-masochistic theme, Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! received less critical acclaim than the previous two entries in Tanaka's Showa trilogy-- A Woman Called Sada Abe (1975) and Watcher in the Attic (1976). However, in their Japanese Cinema Encyclopedia: The Sex Films, Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser give Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture! a top-rating of four out of four stars. Noting Tanaka's use of "dark images, obsessive nihilistic philosophy, and gravely somber atmosphere", they write, "Like all of the movies from Tanaka's Mad Love period, it's filmed in matter-of-fact, non-flinching style, creating a dangerous ambivalence towards traditional concepts of right and wrong, sanity and insanity."

Allmovie calls the film "an amoral masterpiece" and one of "the most disturbing films ever released by the Nikkatsu studio". Writing that the dark and oppressive nature of the film works in its favor, the review concludes, "[t]he cumulative effect is quite powerful, and not for the faint of heart."