Tokyo Decadence
| Tokyo Decadence | |
|---|---|
 Tokyo Decadence DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Ryū Murakami |
| Produced by | Chosei Funahara |
| Music by | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
| Cinematography | 青木正 (Tadashi Aoki) |
| Distributed by | Cinema Epoch |
| Language | Japanese |
| Box office | $277,845[1] |
Tokyo Decadence (トパーズ Topāzu) is a 1992 Japanese pink film. The film was directed by Ryū Murakami with music by Ryuichi Sakamoto. The film stars Miho Nikaido and is known by two other titles, Topaz and Sex Dreams of Topaz. It has been banned in Australia[2] and South Korea.[3] Shimada Masahiko appears in the film.
Plot
A timid Japanese college student, Ai (愛, lit. "love"), works as a specialty prostitute for an exclusive escort agency that caters to wealthy, mostly perverted, Japanese men in Tokyo. To please her clients, she has to play out elaborate fantasy scenarios involving sexual humiliation and light SM/bondage.
The first two-thirds of the film consists in large part of four sex sequences. Two involve dildos and mirrors—one with the man dominant, one with the female dominant. The other two involve erotic asphyxiation with, again, one episode in which the man wants to partially asphyxiate a female and the other in which a man is the recipient. Other sexual acts and interests are involved in some of the scenarios.
However, the actual story revolves around Ai's unrequited love for a married gallery artist who has ended his relationship with her. At the beginning of the movie Ai visits a fortune-teller, played by artist Yayoi Kusama, who advises her to find a "pink stone" then fashion it into a ring. The fortune teller also advises Ai to put a telephone directory under her television and to avoid a gallery in the east. Ai later loses the ring and risks her life to recover it.
The last third of the story is about Ai's problematic attempt to go to the artist's home while she is under the influence of an unidentified drug. Ai has the police called on her but is rescued by one of the artist's neighbors who knows who she is; the other woman's affair with the artist has apparently ended and she tells Ai that she considers her to be her "best friend."
There are at least two versions of Tokyo Decadence, with the shorter one edited more for pacing than for censorship.
See also
References
- ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=tokyodecadence.htm
- ↑ "Film Censorship: T #2". Refused-Classification.com.
- ↑ South Korea damns Breillat's Hell 11 May, 2004 ScreenDaily.com
- Thompson, Nathaniel (2006) [2002]. DVD Delirium: The International Guide to Weird and Wonderful Films on DVD; Volume 1 Redux. Godalming, England: FAB Press. pp. 697–698. ISBN 1-903254-39-6.