Oshima transgresses on the forbidden nature of sexuality as a private and personal experience. In the Realm of the Senses acts consciously to break down taboos to liberate the audience from their own obsessions.

| Jun 6, 2024

As an erotic film, it climaxes in the demanding performances of Eiko Matsuda and Tatsuya Fuji, but I suspect that its marathon exercise in obsessive sexual pleasure remains on a fatiguing and thinly dull surface. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/10 | Jun 18, 2023

Serenity in intensity, bliss in turmoil, transcendence in total perdition, that, with very modest means, is precisely what Nagisa Oshima has achieved in his very latest film, In the Realm of the Senses.

| May 3, 2022

Time and space are suspended in [director Nagisa] Oshima's beautiful images.

| Oct 23, 2019

The cinematography, mise-en-scène, and music respond to the solid and unitary idea of the film. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 8, 2019

In the Realm of the Senses remains one of the great erotic art films, and it retains 100% of its ability to shock and scandalize audiences today, every bit as it did in 1976.

| Sep 24, 2018

It is the great example of Artistic Porno.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Mar 1, 2015

This particular consideration of mutual possession which approaches and then transcends death is well-paced and, within story possibilities, -acted as well.

| Mar 22, 2012

That graphic sexual expression is the narrative currency Oshima uses to explicate a connection between sex and death only adds to the film's incalculable power to provoke, offend, frighten, and spellbind its audience.

| Original Score: A | Nov 27, 2011

Oshima holds nothing back. Yet watching the couple's constant lovemaking is the very opposite of erotic. Which may very well be the point. Sada and Kichizo's fantasy world is strictly private; it doesn't just shut out society, it excludes the viewer too.

| Oct 24, 2011

Declaring yourself bored by a movie full of explicit sex may sometimes mark you out as a dreary pseudo-sophisticate, but in this case it's fair enough.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 1, 2009

I still find In the Realm of the Senses impressive but it now puzzles and worries me.

| Sep 1, 2009

Ai No Corrida is an undeniably powerful, stylish and impressive piece of work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009

Unsanitised, worryingly convincing in its sadomasochistic detail, this is seriously provocative cinema, a telling reminder of what it really means to be dangerous.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 29, 2009

As the soundtrack moans in sympathy while the deep crimson colours dazzle in delirium, the entire movie comes desperately close to approximating the pell-mell emotional turmoil of sex itself. Not porn, sex.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 29, 2009

One of the most extraordinary moments in screen history. Oshima's film widens and deepens the sensual realm.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 29, 2009

A graphic and extremely disturbing exploration of lust and love that deserves its reputation as a classic of world cinema.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009

It was made 33 years ago but Nagisa Oshima's doomed lust classic doesn't look in the least bit dusty. Quite the opposite.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009

I can only imagine critics at the initial screening ... marveling at a 20-foot penis taking up the entire screen: "Oh yeah, that totally represents the patriarchy."

| Original Score: 3/10 | Jul 26, 2009

Like his characters, Oshima is determined to explore and transgress sexual boundaries, if they even exist, by posing a challenge to conventional morality. [Blu-ray]

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 28, 2009