Rating: 
Summary: I HAVENT SEEN THIS YET...
Review: ....BUT I HAVE READ MOST OF THE REVIEWS...I THINK THE POINT I AM TRYING TO GET ACROSS IS THAT THIS WAS NOT MEANT TO BE A PORN...IT WAS MEANT TO BE ART...JUST BECAUSE MODERN AMERICAN SOCIETY VIEWS NUDITY IN FILM AS WRONG OR IMMORAL, DOES NOT MEAN THERE'S ANY REASON TO DOWN A FOREIGN FEATURE WHERE THIS IS AN EVERYDAY ISSUE...THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME...
Rating: 
Summary: May Float Your Boat or Sink Your Ship
Review: Many of you looking at this particular item might be well aware of foreign cinema, in all of it's delightfully un-Hollywood sentimentality. If you've seen the movie - which I'll assume some of you have - you might have already formed a very specific opinion about it. Perhaps the reason why is because the subject matter is very extreme, and it'd be more than a little difficult to walk away and not feel something. Initially, I was disgusted. I changed my mind, and I thought I'd share my reasoning here.First of all, let's say for the sake of argument that the world has various standards when it comes to morality in any film dealing with adult issues. Some of you may have seen Lars Von Trier's "Dogville" and thought to yourself: "That's one skewed paradigm." Be that as it may, it's no less plausible than the cinematic - or philosophic - paradigm of Steven Spielberg. My point here is that we all look at and engage realities in a different way - and Japanese cinema is no different. In his revelatory book "Eros in Hell," Jack Hunter explores Japanese "pink cinema." This film is among hundreds produced in an odd era of Japanese filmmaking. Comparable with American "blue movies," pinku eiga moved to explore the boundaries of s*x as art, but also the psychological implications between the graphic evidence. It'd be easy to refer to this genre of filmmaking as horror/pornography; the more difficult path is examining it in the same light you might examine a film by Adriane Lyne or David Cronenberg. Their general aesthetic is curiously akin to Japanese pink films. So here's the breakdown: this film is, in my opinion, an exploration of s*x as statement which is then turned on it's head to direct it's audience in considering the right questions.
Jack Hunter's book will point out that this film in particular is an exception - in that while it shared a genre and a content with it's contemporaries, the bigger picture might actually have been a statement about pink cinema all together. Consider, as you watch, that the s*x is almost cartoonish in it's frequency, that the humor is dry and nonchalant, and that the ending lends itself to a whole different mindset. Without giving too much away, the end is similar to "The Night Porter," or "Dead Ringers." These comparisons are primarily in reference to the climactic scenes in each - where our hero and heroine (in spite the difficulty with which they hold the title) pull out of the outside world completely into some kind of isolated space. Up to this point we've seen our protagonists weather scrutiny and obstacles to be fulfilled. In fact we - the audience - have done most of the scrutinizing and castigating. I know I wasn't rooting for these people for the better part of their respective stories, but I felt as if I were driving them away into reclusiveness by lacking compassion for them. Only when each set of characters are alone do we start to feel less accusatory and unforgiving. We realize - or so the hope might be - that their's is a deep spiritual bond. One you might expect to see between to loveable Hollywood starlets in a romantic comedy. But that isn't exactly the way things are. Though this example is relatively melodramatic, you can understand why they have arrived at such an intimacy. They've reached that place with each other because we, the audience, didn't believe they could. We passed them off as s*x-crazed sociopaths. And honestly, they were. But I think a real interesting point the film made to me was how deeply they were connected in spite of the superficial s*xuality. This is a hard-learned lesson, and one you'll have to dig deep for. But consider for a moment that America doesn't own the patent on love stories, and that additionally love stories aren't always cute or clean or pure. Perhaps from the filmmaker's perspective love was an ugly, dirty thing - until it existed in a place where it was solemnly understood. And without the world coming down on the protagonists - from without the constraints of society or the status quo - their particular kind of love was much easier to understand. I'm not saying that you'll instantly say to yourself: "Hey, wait a second... that was just love, not graphic s*x." I just took it with a grain of salt and thought of it as a near-parody. The fact of the matter is that you can point out blatant exaggerations in a great deal of Japanese contemporary media, and this film is no exception. This obviously does not solve the problem of "just too much graphic s*x for my liking." "The Night Porter," directed by Liliana Cavani, is somewhat less intense. That isn't to say it's devoid of intensity, or that you'll have a nice dinner-date movie on hand. It is to say that the s*xual content is far less prominent - and miraculously it gets the same point across in it's decidedly more watered-down, Western way. And as far as I'm concerned, that message is "intimacy can't be readily depicted in cinema without alienating the audience, because ideally - intimacy is a very exclusive thing." It takes a patient person to watch "In The Realm of the Senses." It takes a lot of courage to appreciate it. However, save for the actors (or in the case of "In the Realm..." the real-life people it was inspired by) - don't expect anyone to completely understand the intimacy. This film will haunt some of you with that prospect.
Rating:
Summary: Explicit art
Review: It was not, to be honest, one of the films in the world I have enjoyed the most. The Japanese fascination with pain is a bit odd to me. But it is well made, and it proved an important point: that the western idea that sex or nudity must not be shown in a serious film is just wrong. It only seems wrong to show nudity or sex when the film makers are trying at the same time *not* to do it. If it is a natural part of the film, there is no problem whatsoever. It is a pity that we can only see sex or nudity in porn films, for they are always attrociously bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Disgusting, Boring, Explicit, and Unusual
Review: If I could be frank, I don't understand why this film is not considered soft-core porn. You actually see his organ in her mouth and they really do have sex and it's not acting, like in most films. I must say that this movie grossed me out, turned me on and made me laugh all at the same time. It is not very long and I didn't really catch that it was a brothel that Sada worked at, so I couldn't figure out why everyone was so okay with them having sex all the time and the amount of voyeurism. I give this film three stars because even though it is hard to watch and does get too monotonous with the sex (that's pretty much all the film is, them having sex) I must commend it for it's exploration of the idea of how sexuality and pleasure can go to the point of death. It's like at the peak moment of sex, nothing else matters except the ultimate pleasure, even death. That's an interesting idea and a more facinating thing is that the store is true, set in 1930's Japan. There are all sorts of gruesome and i-can't-believe-they-filmed-that scenes, such as one involving an egg. The ending made me squirm with repulsion and disgust, and the shocking thing is that they actually show her actions on camera at the end as well. Nothing is censored in this film, which I highly commend, since I am against censorship. I suppose the director wanted to make this film have a raw feel to it and that's why I don't think it's done very tastefully. It is also really suprising that this film was released in mainstream cinemas in America. I don't know what Japan is like as far as explicit "non-porn" films (this film is clearly porn though), but we're so censor-crazy here, so it's suprising and liberating to find out that its release happened.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Film, Horrific DVD
Review: I like Asian cinema. I really haven't seen all that many of these types of films, but the few I viewed over the past two or three years were excellent in terms of plot, special effects, and cinematography. The best thing about films from Japan and Hong Kong, and let's face it, these are the ones we're all talking about, is their non-western views about movie violence and adult situations. These guys are simply more willing to push envelopes we wouldn't think of touching. Well, "In the Realm of the Senses" not only pushes envelopes, it shreds them into tiny pieces. This taboo busting film claims a real event in 1930's Japan as the basis for a love story the likes of which you have rarely seen. This is the type of celluloid nightmare that stays with you long after the closing credits fade into darkness. "In the Realm of the Senses" mixes pornography, psychotic obsession, and grisly special effects to produce a volatile cocktail that will ambush those individuals not used to extreme cinema. Set in a Japan gearing up for war, "In the Realm of the Senses" introduces the viewer to a brothel where the young Abe Sada works. One of the regular customers is Kichizo, an older married man who enjoys the company of the geishas. It isn't too long before Sada and Kichizo meet, and the two rapidly move into deeper and deeper realms of obsession and sexual adventure. The game, although it sure doesn't seem like a playful adventure, transmogrifies into open menace on the part of Sada, who threatens to maim or kill Kichizo if he pays the slightest attention to his wife. Even the other women in the brothel become fearful and chary about the strange events unfolding between the two lovers. Sada and Kichizo stay in a single room for days, without bathing or cleaning the floors. The obsession the two possess for each other often causes day-to-day worries to fade into the background. Things sink to such a bizarre level that the conclusion really shouldn't come as a surprise, although it does because of its emotional shot to the stomach. This is an incredible experience that many will not or cannot fathom, let alone comprehend. I'm not sure I understand several of the film's elements, probably due in large part to the atrocious DVD version constructed by Fox Lorber. I recognize this is a foreign film and therefore possibly problematic for English speaking technicians, but this DVD is poorly made. The English subtitles rarely match up with the person speaking; the transfer doesn't look as good as it should, and even when I used the zoom function I knew I wasn't seeing the film the way the director intended. You get glimpses of how good the film must look when properly formatted and fully restored, such as brilliant flashes of color from Sada's kimonos and the lighting used by director Nagisa Oshima STILL looks great despite the bad transfer. A movie this powerful deserves much better than this stilted treatment. I've heard bad things about Fox Lorber concerning other DVD releases, and I tend to believe those statements now after seeing how they butchered this film. I am sure there are numerous subtexts drifting through "In the Realm of the Senses," but I am not sure what they all are. I couldn't help but notice how the rigid Japanese social system repeatedly reared its head. The women all refer to Kichizo as "master" and readily submit to his attentions even when they do not wish to do so. That's what makes the conclusion so surprising; that a woman in Japanese society did what she did must have been absolutely mind blowing to the patriarchal social hierarchy. Another aspect of the film certainly dealt with the war and Japan's machismo based discipline, but I cannot say exactly how it fits into the picture. After all, I only noticed one scene where I saw any soldiers. Is the obsession between Sada and Kichizo paralleled with the deadly obsession Japan had for its war plans? I'm probably reaching badly with this, but Japan's disastrous bid for world domination must play a role in this somewhere. I won't watch this again until a company releases a decent DVD edition. I probably wouldn't watch it again soon anyway because the movie is so darn intense it takes awhile to absorb what you're seeing. It blows my mind that this got a theatrical release in the States back in the 1970s. I'll bet a lot of people had no idea what they got themselves into when they decided to spend a few hours with Nagisa Oshima's psychological tour de force. When they rated it NC-17 for the DVD release, they knew what they were talking about!
Rating: 
Summary: A Shameful Transfer From A Shameful Company
Review: Fox Lorber should have a clue that they are in fact releasing some of the most important films ever made. They seem to destroy the essence of the work by directly transfering their videos directly to DVD. This film is no exception, and by all means stay away from it. Sure, it might look nice in your collection, people coming over and saying, "Wow! You have 'In The Realm Of The Senses" on DVD!" But after they see how bad the transfer and the delayed subtitles are, they know that you just bought yourself an expensive drink coaster. My copy is currently in a used bin at a local record store. I think I'll wait for a better transfer, or buy the Region 2 Japanese release. (25 years later, finally available in Japan) Beware, I warned you, and so did many others on this page.
Rating: 
Summary: fox lorber ???? ha ha ha ha
Review: Very good film but Fox Lorber never never never never never.
Rating:
Summary: FOX LORBER IS THE WORST DVD COMPANY ALL OVER THE WORLD
Review: Please edit this review to prevent some people of throw out money.
It is not the first time ihave a bad expireance with this company.
Once i had STELLA a Greek title .It was just for throw it .Please save your coustomers.
Rating:
Summary: a comment on the DVD transfer itself . . .
Review: Please DO NOT waste your money on this DVD. I'm not commenting on the film content itself. This is the most shoddy treatment of a film that I have ever seen. I was so disappointed when I got this in the mail and played it. It is truly horrible. There is a lot of grain, colors are flat and terrible, images are fuzzy and objects look slightly stretched from top to bottom. I'm really not a stickler for DETAIL, but this DVD is literally awful. If you like this movie, then just wait until some other company does it justice. There is no joy watching it in its present DVD form. It's as if someone found an old, beat up VHS copy of this movie and transferred it to DVD. I guess it all boils down to money -sad.
Rating:
Summary: This MOVIE [is weak]!
Review: And not just the chick! I was expecting something a little bit more interesting, but I didn't realize that sex could bo sooooooooo boring! Gimme a break. This movie is just plain horrible. Boring boring and more boring. ARGH! Why did I punish myself with such madness? I have seen better erotic movies that were not as explicit like Judou with the incredible Gong Li. Watch out for the sex scene involving bolts of red silk! Fantastic!
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