Review of Realm of the Senses, The

Introduction

‘Ai No Corrida’ was the Japanese title of the film that roughly translates into Realm of the Senses. This is the story of an ex-prostitute who becomes involved with the master of the house – a married man. They start a deeply sexual love affair and get married. Occasionally she visits a Principal and trades sexual favours for money – this way the couple can live away from his home and first wife in various hotels around the country.

Her obsession with him starts to go awry the further on the film you get, leading to a shocking ending that does lead to a lot of leg crossing, wincing, and exclaiming the word “Ooooh” a lot!

But basically this is a shagging film. Her obsession with his old fella knows no bounds, and he seems to have no problem getting it up on a frighteningly regular occurrence! Whilst this film starts off well, it degenerates into the couple going to some other hotel for copious amounts of copulation, and this is where the film falls down terribly. To be blunt, watching her obsession with him and his reaction just gets very boring.

However, this film does raise some questions on film classification/censorship laws in this country. The film is uncut and depicts scenes of masturbation, penetration and oral sex – but because this film is Japanese with subtitles, the censors seem to turn a blind eye because it’s an “art film” and will therefore have a limited audience. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going all ‘Mary Whitehouse’ on you, I believe that our censorship laws on sex and sexual acts shown in films are still far too stringent, however I do find it strange that an English-language film like this would most likely get a Restricted 18 rating allowing sales only in licensed sex shops.

Video

The picture is a non-anamorphic 1.85:1 aspect ratio and looks good for its age (1976). Skin tones are good and the film is mainly free of artefacts. Being from 70s film stock however doesn’t give the most striking contrast levels, and in low light scenes, the picture can just look a little murky. Not bad, but not brilliant either.

Audio

You will hear every grunt and moan from the stereo soundtrack, but there is nothing here that will really set your system alight… still you didn’t buy this one for the sound did you?

Features

A picture gallery and the filmography of the director.

Conclusion

A mixed bag really, as a character study of obsession I don’t believe it works. I think any self respecting man would have run away from that loon long before they got to the stage that they did, never mind the constant sex she was able to offer. As a voyeuristic work on the sex lives of the couple it works for a while, but then tires as the film really runs out of a plot and anything coherent to say.