I feel that a director's job through a movie lens, is not to tell the devil he/she is evil but to make a film that tells the viewer that evil exists and how we find it in us. This movie shows a lot more than we think we know about human nature. This movie is based on the true story of a woman called Sada Abe -played inimitably by top-notch Hitomi Kuroki. Sada is sensuously beautiful in an unmade-up way [no makeup plastered on her]. In 1936, Sada strangled her lover Tatsuzo [played by the short in height but powerfully muscled actor Tsurutaro Kataoka] and cut off his penis and scrotum [ouch!] and carried them around in a paper bag shoved into her kimono belt.
Director Nobuhiko Obayashi's unusually beautiful smooth film with some odd camera angles -follows the young woman, Sada's life from her loss of virginity in a rape at 14 to life as a prostitute and later a mistress - from a fateful meeting with the man whom she loves, to his eventual murder. The scene where Sada, who works in her lover's restaurant, wrestles, pulls hair, and judo chops Tatsuzo's jealous wife to the bamboo floor boards and kicks her in the ribs till the wife jumps up strangling and slapping Sada's face -is a must see and really wonderful! The movie has this quirky, way of bringing a relaxed and usually unseen side of Japanese life - showing characters dressed in a mix of western & traditional dress: the costuming is delicious. Lots of love scenes and erotic rolling on the floor mats but not much nudity [no genitals etc] just fine creamy shoulders and legs -truely sensual. These events took place during a period of war, when Japan invaded Manchuria, economic depression, public unease and growing militarism, with references to the assassination of Cabinet Ministers by groups of 'Young Officers' which begins the nucleus of the future WW II Fascist regime. The action was set in a time when the young were questioning eastern traditions and wanting western consumer goods [Saba eats bags and bags of mini sugar rolled donuts]. It was the time of unrest and confusion and when public opinion was, at best, unpredictable.
When the details of her crime are printed in nationwide newspapers -Sada became an overnight sensation as a 'love goddess' and was granted a lenient sentence for her crime of passion. The actor who plays her wandering vagabond friend is dressed in a combination of Japanese peasant baggy pants and leggings with a shawl and topped off with an Al Capone hat -I just loved the whole package - Japanese with English subtitles.
