Movies Like In the Realm of the Senses

Frequently asked about In the Realm of the Senses

Common questions people search for, with answers written by us at MoviesPack.

• Is the story based on a real event?▾

  Yes. The film is based on the true 1936 case of Sada Abe, a Japanese geisha and domestic worker who strangled her lover Kichizo Ishida during an act of erotic asphyxiation and then severed his genitals, carrying them with her when she was arrested days later. The incident caused a national scandal in Japan and Sada Abe became one of the country's most notorious figures.

• Why does Sada strangle Kichizo, and why does he allow it?▾

  The strangulation begins as an extension of their erotic games — both discover that constricting blood flow to the brain intensifies sexual pleasure, and Kichizo actively encourages Sada to tighten her grip further each time. Over the course of their obsessive affair they cross a psychological threshold where the boundary between pleasure and death dissolves entirely. Kichizo's willingness, even eagerness, to be strangled suggests he has surrendered his will completely to their shared desire, reaching a point where death inside that intimacy feels preferable to ordinary life outside it.

• Why does Sada cut off Kichizo's genitals after his death?▾

  Sada's act of severing and keeping Kichizo's genitals is presented as a final, absolute act of possession — a way to keep part of him with her forever and prevent him from ever belonging to anyone else, including his wife. Director Ōshima frames it not as an act of madness but as the logical endpoint of a love that refused any boundary. Historically, Sada reportedly told police she wanted to keep a part of Kichizo close to her always.

• What is the significance of the geisha who watches or participates in scenes with Sada and Kichizo?▾

  The other women in the film — geishas and servants — function partly as witnesses to and participants in the couple's escalating transgression, reflecting the permissive yet hierarchical world of the pleasure quarters. Their presence highlights how Sada and Kichizo's relationship begins within recognized social rituals of the brothel world but rapidly exceeds and destroys those boundaries. Ōshima uses these figures to contrast institutionalized, transactional sexuality with the consuming, self-annihilating desire between the two leads.

• What does the film's title 'In the Realm of the Senses' mean thematically?▾

  The title (Japanese: Ai no korīda, literally 'Bullfight of Love') signals a realm defined purely by physical sensation and erotic obsession, deliberately severed from reason, social duty, and self-preservation. Ōshima constructs the lovers' world as increasingly sealed off from the outside — they rarely leave their room, reject food and social contact, and ultimately exist only for each other's bodies. The 'realm' they inhabit is a private absolute that can only end in death because it has no room for ordinary survival.