The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea

Rating:
Summary: I have to see it again!
Review: This film was great it stuck in my head for years, I seen it on playboy magazine in 1977 and WOW!I could not believe the sex . It blew me away I neve seen anything like it ever. Then two years later I saw it in a second run theater the film story was something different at the time I was about 17 and I never seen a film like this before. So all these years I have been looking for this film.And now I could go back to that place in the darken theater an watch sarah & kris do what I rememberd the most about this film and the boy who played the son.I'll enjoy keeping this vhs but I hope it will be on dvd. It's a great film to thoughs who have seen it know what I am talking about I got my copy.

Rating:
Summary: beautiful visual film as well as thought provoking
Review: this is one of my most favorite movies. it is thought provoking and visually beautiful. the acting is wonderful, and is a movie that i will always love. it's timeless.

Rating:
Summary: Has some merits but the book is certainly better
Review: This movie takes the liberty of transplanting the Yukio Mishima novel's setting from Yokohama, Japan to a sleepy English port town. Inevitably, it changes the nationalities of the protagonists (Japanese widow and sailor to English and American, respectively). These modifications are not what detracts from the movie's impact, but instead the plotline and the character development (or rather, the lack of).
Regarding plot, the filmmakers took an oversimplified approach on Mishima's rich examination into the characters' psyches. This successively leads to the poor character development in the film. The actors sincerely try to display intensity in their characters' roles, but without any understanding of their derivations, they muddle the story. A good example involves the "chief" of the boys' gang. We are given an expose his controlling, fascist behavior: one memorable scene involves him angrily kicking out all the members of the gang from his house due to them not grasping his level of consciousness (the twisted, hateful look on this young boy's face shows his ferocity). But without further details on his motives or personality, it's difficult to surmise his attitude. We only see that he is an angry, manipulative, nihilistic monster.
The love affair between the sailor and the mother of one of the gangmembers actully compounds the film's problems. Although their sex scenes are erotic and very explicit (they were considered quite shocking for that time; today they might qualify as soft-core pornography, albeit many will disagree with this), one is left to wonder what attracts these two who have such disparity between them? The director places great emphasis on this physical attraction and spends much time detailing this. Again, a lot of effort being placed into one facet of these people without knowing the fundamentals of them.
This film does have its positive qualities: the English setting is wonderfully photographed and the filmmakers show an earnest effort in conveying Mishima's story onto film.