Rating: 
Summary: OBSESSIVE
Review: The film was probably made to shock people. The majority of the film focuses on sex and various sexual acts between two illicit lovers who basically stay together for days on end doing nothing but have sex and maybe eat (sometimes the two activities complement one another). It was made in the mid 70s, which will seem very shocking when you watch it today. It is very graphic and visual, making no apologies for the liberties it takes. The end is rather insane and shocking also although if you have watched the film and read all the subtitles you won't be particularly surprised.
Rating:
Summary: Does For Eggs What "Last Tango" Did For Butter
Review: Sexually explicit material does not bother me, and here it certainly serves the story. This film is not erotic because the characters in it are very sick. Those obsessed with sex should definitely have a look at it, though I cannot call it a thoroughly satisfying viewing experience.
Rating:
Summary: Dead From the Waist Up
Review: Not only is Oshima's film silly, it doesn't even do justice to the true story it uses as an excuse to exist. Oshima was being very political by challenging the Japanese censorship laws (and showing pubic hair), but in his haste to show us more than any other mainstream movie ever dared (or cared), he failed to invest the film with the life of its time and of its characters, who were supposedly real people once upon a time. It's a tawdry excuse for showing explicit sex - even if the couple enjoyed a hypertrophied sex life. And alot of the dialogue is unintentionally risible.
Rating: 
Summary: 'Nothingness' and desire for ownership in original form
Review: Sometimes you can simply ignore the words of the film critics. I really can't understand in what way this film is 'pretentious' as Leonard Martin comments. This film expresses 'nothingness' and desire for ownership in the most original form!Nagisa Oshima bases this film on a real incident, the shocking Abe Sada Incident in 1936, in which the girl was arrested when found holding a male sex organ in her hand. The tragedy was due to the pathetic phenomenon at the time - plenty of Japanese made use of pornography and even perversity to run away from the reality. In a way this film can be considered political, and this is also the reason why Oshima choose to reflect this phenomenon in a naked way, focusing on the relationship between Sada and Kichi (the owner of the sex organ). Their obsession and desire for owning one another soon turn into a search for self-identification in a dangerous and perversive way, and they find tremendrous enjoyment in S/M behaviour, which finally has taken Kichi's life accidentally. To possess her lover forever, Sada... you know what she has done. Oshima has certainly chosen an extremely bold and erotic theme. Perhaps there is really too much sex in the film which may be sickening, but the effect is as strong as Ernest Hemingway's novels in expressing sense of alienation and 'nothingness'. 'Pretentious'? No. If I had to comment a film similar in theme and style by this word, I would choose the talky LAST TANGO IN PARIS.
Rating: 
Summary: They're really doing, but so what...
Review: This is a boring movie. This is a very boring movie. This is why art movies are usually condemned to three showings at a film festival and then straight to the (usually hard-to-find) videostore. The main character is a geisha who's having sex with her employer. About a half hour into the movie you realize that yes, she really is having sex with him, but there's a real pretention to artistic integrity in this thing, so the couple has to talk just as much as they are having sex. They talk, they have sex, they talk some more and then they have sex while they are talking, but since all they are talking about is sex and since the erotic element has vanished long before the "egg scene", you have to struggle with listening to these guys bore you to death. This would be a sick twisted little thrill if it didn't take itself so seriously, but since it does take itself seriously, you sit through it waiting for it to get better knowing that it will just plod along until that strangulation/castration scene at the end (and no, I don't care that it is a spoiler since how much of a spoiler can it really be when both characters TALK about strangulation and castration for the half the movie) in which the narrator tells you that it is a true story. I don't know why it should matter by the end that it is a true story. I guess the director is trying to say that it's not his fault that it's so dull or twisted because it happpened in REAL LIFE! Or something like that.
Rating:
Summary: Great film - Crappy DVD!
Review: The other guy whose comments allegedly refer to the DVD doesn't know what he's talking about! The Fox Lorber DVD is in full-screen (cropped from original 1.85:1) transfer, and the Japanese language track IS included (In fact, it's the only language track included). The quality, as usual with Fox Lorber items, is mediocre at best. What a waste, considering it's such a great movie. At least, it's uncut.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing censored version (shortened and blackened)
Review: While the movie itself is great, very intense and highly recommendable for an outstanding experience, this VHS version, although published on April 25th, 2000 by Fox Lorber, still features the widely-known and annoying, shortened and blackened 94 minute long (or rather: 'short') cut. The box however states 104 minutes, which is of course not correct and beware of the 1.66:1 full screen format! You will miss all the important scenes that make this movie the special one that it is and you will definitely agree once you have seen it uncut - should you ever get hold of one of those infamous uncensored Hong Kong laserdisc editions or be lucky enough to have it screened in a cinema near you. Down with black dots, omitted scenes and intentionally fuzzied images! Among the missing scenes are the one with Sada and the small boy at the end of the movie, the fainting Sada at the beginning, blackened are all of Sada's intense involvements with her Master and fuzzied as well as shortened are the scenes at the marriage with the wooden bird and the servant girl in the middle of the film (this is also shortened considerably) and Sada's engagement while her master takes a smoke at the beginning of the story. Some scenes are zoomed in so that nothing offensive could be seen and others are panned to the right or left for the same effect. Chopped off limbs are nice in an Italian antique statue but absolutely out of place (pun courtesy of the English language) in this movie. The list could go on for awhile but you get the drift. Oddly enough, the scene with the egg (you know which one I mean) is not censored! Strange, huh?
Rating:
Summary: A missed opportunity...
Review: A stunning film that lives in the memory long after seeing it. A shame the original Japanese language track was not included, at least it's in widescreen. A five star film, a three star DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Spectacularly Powerful Representations
Review: My instinct to revisit this cinematographic experience was prompted by its near-controversial debate in a recent film festival back in Singapore... ... of how a motion picture produced more than twenty years ago continues to shock with its 'sexually explicit' content, and an almost hopeless proposition for the local censorship board to re-evaluate its opinion regarding the film's public release; submitted by 'crusaders for the arts' from a Singaporean film society. Those in favour of the said release demanded for both government and people (in general) to promote a culture whereby art, in all its various forms and representations, could be embraced with a 'cosmopolitanly matured' attitude. The opposition on the other hand, implied the film to be sheer pornography, a 'meaningless' picture with zero cultural or moral substance. While I do personally feel sceptical about the feasibility of its public release, I also do frown upon the latter opinions. This film should, and could be publicly released to any population, subject to its cultural susceptibility to artistic induction...whereby the majority can interpret the arts and differing culture, perspectorial realms and backgrounds...for this film, in short; a people that can siphon the sex from the subliminally realistic and disturbing body...which is both dark and true to the core... something that most minds living under seemingly autocratically dictatorial affiliating bodies (i.e. a stern cultural censor) will fail to grasp. This film provokes both intense and passionate emotions, which amidst the implied sexual propagation, highlights a humane agenda of varying extremes. Its subtle message can only be decoded by a culturally adept and mature audience. It describes unpretentiously, the nether regions of the human mind and the expressive fantasies that are within its dark fathoms. For those who (honestly) view this film as nothing but a pornographic title, they have all missed the bottomline and the whole story altogether. Director Oshima has successfully created a film which demonstrates human emotions at levels that are deemed socially incorrect to many and incomprehensible by most. One can empathise also with those who refuse to accept the actual message out of both shame and disgust, a piety induced by many cultures. I salute the country's effort in sustaining her nation's moral integrity. Alas, the opposite can only be said about the statutory body/ies that continually preaches its efforts in promoting international culture so as to realise and enhance a 'cosmopolitanly adept' nation; while being extremely conservative in its seemingly holier-than-thou judgements over the past years.
Rating:
Summary: In the decade of the seventies!
Review: This film was quite a surprise in the late '70s... let alone the '90s or the '00s. In fact, you will not find a non-porno film this graphic. LAST TANGO IN PARIS comes close. Hopefully this new release will be the original, uncut version, not the spliced (all puns intended) edition that's been previously available. Some wild moments. A horrifying climax.
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