Trailer
Plot summary
Tokyo, 1936. Sada Abe, a former prostitute, works as a maid at a hotel whose owner, Kichizo Ishida, begins an intense affair with her, made up of sexual experiments and self-indulgence. Ishida leaves his wife for her, and Sada grows possessive and jealous of him while he becomes more eager to please her. The story is drawn from a real case of that year.
Cast
- Kyôji Kokonoeas Teacher Ômiya
- Naomi Shiraishias Geisha Yaeji
- Shinkichi Nodaas Street Restaurant Owner
- Komikichi Horias Mitsuwa Geisha
- Kikuhei Matsunoyaas Hôkan jester
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about In the Realm of the Senses (1976)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 1976 the Japanese government charged director Nagisa Ōshima and publisher San'ichishobo with obscenity over a book of stills and script notes from the film. Ōshima testified that nothing expressed is obscene and what is obscene is what is hidden; he and the publisher were found not guilty in 1979, upheld on appeal in 1982.
- Japanese censorship laws would not have allowed Nagisa Ōshima's film to be made as he wanted, so the production was officially listed as a French enterprise and the undeveloped footage shipped to France for processing and editing.
- At its Japanese premiere, the film's sexual activity was optically censored with reframing and blurring, and as of 2009 no uncensored version had ever been released in Japan.
- Belgium was the only European country to ban the film at the time; it lifted the ban in 1994 and has not censored a film of any kind since.
- The film was banned on its premiere at the 1976 New York Film Festival and again in West Germany, with one ban attributed to a scene in which Kichi pushes an egg into Sada's vagina and then eats it.
- The film's Japanese title, Ai no Korīda, was borrowed for the 1980 funk song "Ai No Corrida", first recorded by Chaz Jankel and later a hit for Quincy Jones in 1981.
