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In the Realm of the Senses

Original title: Ai no korîda · Turkish title: Duyular İmparatorluğu

“Never before had a man and a woman loved each other so intensely.”

1976 · 1 h 49 min
Directed by Nagisa Oshima
DramaRomance

Cast

Tatsuya Fuji Eiko Matsuda

Credits

Written by: Nagisa Ōshima

Plot

In 1936 Tokyo, a former prostitute, Sada, who works as a maid at an inn, begins an intense affair with her employer, Kichizo. Their relationship grows ever more obsessive and consumed by sex, shutting out the world, and heads towards a fatal extreme. Nagisa Oshima's 1976 film, based on a real case, includes explicit sexual scenes and was heavily censored and prosecuted in Japan, but is regarded as a serious study of passion and power.

Sinekatalog’s take

Nagisa Oshima's explicit drama of an obsessive love affair is provocative and still controversial. Beautifully made and intense, it uses sex as a lens for power, madness and a doomed passion.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 6.6 / 10 (25,633 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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