Flower and Snake (2004 film)
| Flower and Snake | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Takashi Ishii |
| Produced by | Kazuo Shimizu |
| Written by |
Takashi Ishii (screenplay) |
| Starring | Aya Sugimoto |
| Music by | Gorō Yasukawa |
| Edited by | Yūji Murayama |
| Distributed by | Toei |
|
Release date
|
March 13, 2004 (Japan) |
|
Running time
|
115 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Flower and Snake (花と蛇? Hana to hebi), released in 2004, is a Japanese film based on the 1974 movie Flower and Snake directed by Masaru Konuma and starring Naomi Tani. The earlier film, based on a novel by Oniroku Dan, was part of Nikkatsu's Roman Porno series. The 2004 version, directed by Takashi Ishii and starring Aya Sugimoto, has been described as marking a "watershed moment in the history of Japanese film censorship" with "some of the most extravagant scenes of sexual cruelty and graphic nudity to be passed off as mainstream entertainment in any part of the world."
On the surface, Shizuko (Aya Sugimoto) is a beautiful and talented tango dancer married to a handsome and successful businessman Takayoshi Tōyama, but she is troubled by recurrent masochistic dreams and her inability to be sexually aroused by her husband. But her husband is heavily indebted to gangsters and yakuza boss Kanzō Morita also has a video supplied by Kawada, a disgruntled former employee, which implicates Tōyama in a bribery scheme. Morita tells Tōyama that his only recourse is his beautiful wife who is an obsession to his mentor, the politically powerful Ippei Tashiro. When Tōyama finds that Tashiro is 95 years old, he convinces himself that turning his wife over to him will not be a major problem. When he brings his wife to the supposed masked ball, however, she is kidnapped and made part of a private bondage show for the elderly yakuza chief and his twisted friends. Shizuko resists at first but submits when her female bodyguard Kyōko (who has also been kidnapped) is submitted to sexual torture and threatened with death. Shizuko is then subjected to a series of punishments including abundant rope bondage. When her husband repents and finally reaches her after paying the yakuza, her only response is "Do me!". After more sexual adventures, she finally escapes, though it remains ambiguous as to whether she experienced was real or another of her masochistic dreams.
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