In the Realm of the Senses
| In the Realm of the Senses | |
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Japanese theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Nagisa Oshima |
| Produced by | Anatole Dauman |
| Written by | Nagisa Oshima |
| Starring |
Eiko Matsuda Tatsuya Fuji |
| Music by | Minoru Miki |
| Cinematography | Hideo Ito |
| Edited by | Keiichi Uraoka |
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Production
company |
Argos Films
Oceanic Oshima Productions |
| Distributed by | Argos Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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104 minutes |
| Country | Japan France |
| Language | Japanese |
| Box office | 1,424,906 kr |
In the Realm of the Senses (French: L'Empire des sens, Japanese: 愛のコリーダ, Ai no korīda) is a 1976 Franco-Japanese art film written and directed by Nagisa Oshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of an incident from 1930s Japan, that of Sada Abe. It generated great controversy during its release; while intended for mainstream wide release, it contains scenes of unsimulated sexual activity between the actors (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda, among others).
In 1936 Tokyo, Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda) is a former prostitute who now works as a maid in a hotel. The hotel's owner, Kichizo Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji), molests her, and the two begin an intense affair that consists of sexual experiments and various self-indulgences. Ishida leaves his wife to pursue his affair with Sada. Sada becomes increasingly possessive and jealous of Ishida, and Ishida more eager to please her. Their mutual obsession escalates to the point where Ishida finds she is most excited by strangling him during lovemaking, and he is killed in this fashion. Sada then severs his penis, walks around with it inside her for several days, and writes, "Sada Kichi the two of us forever," in blood on his chest.
The film was released under In the Realm of the Senses in the U.S. and the U.K., and under L'Empire des sens (Empire of the Senses) in France. The French title was taken from Roland Barthes's book about Japan, L'Empire des signes (Empire of Signs, 1970).
Strict censorship laws in Japan would not have allowed the film to be made according to Oshima's vision. This obstruction was bypassed by officially listing the production as a French enterprise, and the undeveloped footage was shipped to France for processing and editing. At its première in Japan, the sexual activity was optically censored using reframing and blurring.
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