In 1936 Tokyo, Sada Abe is a former prostitute who now works as a maid in a hotel. The hotel's owner, Kichizo Ishida, molests her, and the two begin an intense affair that consists of sexual experiments and various self-indulgences. Ishida leaves his wife to pursue his affair with Sada. Sada becomes increasingly possessive and jealous of Ishida, and Ishida more eager to please her. Their mutual obsession escalates to the point where Ishida finds she is most excited by strangling him during lovemaking, and he is killed in this fashion. Sada then severs his penis. While she is shown next to him naked, it is mentioned that she will walk around with his penis inside her for several days. Words written with blood can be read on his chest: "Sada Kichi the two of us forever".
The film was released under In the Realm of the Senses in the U.S. and the U.K., and under L'Empire des sens in France. The French title was taken from Roland Barthes's book about Japan, L'Empire des signes.
Censorship
Strict censorship laws in Japan would not have allowed the film to be made according to Ōshima's vision. This obstruction was bypassed by officially listing the production as a French enterprise, and the undeveloped footage was shipped to France for processing and editing. At its première in Japan, the sexual activity was optically censored using reframing and blurring. In the United States, the film was initially banned upon its première at the 1976 New York Film Festival but later screened uncut, and a similar fate awaited the film when it was released in Germany. It was also banned because of a scene in which Kichi pushes an egg into Sada's vulva, forcing her to push it out of her vagina, with Kichi eating the egg. The film was not available on home video until 1990, although it was sometimes seen uncut in film clubs. At the time, the only European country in which the film was banned was Belgium, where it was originally banned for its explicit sex scenes. The ban was lifted in 1994, and the country has not censored a film of any kind since. At the time of its initial screening at the 1976 London Film Festival, the British Board of Film Censors recommended it be shown under private cinema club conditions to avoid the need for heavy cuts to be made, but only after the Obscene Publications Act had been extended to films to avoid potential legal problems. The film opened at the Gate Cinema Club in 1978. It was given an official countrywide cinema release in 1991, though the video release was delayed until 2000 when it was passed with an "18" certificate. All of the adult sexual activity was left intact, but a shot in which Sada yanks the penis of a prepubescent boy after he misbehaves was reframed, zooming in so that only the reaction of the boy was shown. In Australia, the film was originally banned because of obscenity; a censored version was made available in 1977. Only in 2000 did it finally become available in its complete cut. The pornographic content of the production also caused it to be banned in Israel in 1987. The film is available in uncut form in France, Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium and several other territories. In Canada, when originally submitted to the provincial film boards in the 1970s, the film was rejected in all jurisdictions except Quebec and British Columbia. It was not until 1991 that individual provinces approved the film and gave it a. However, in the Maritimes the film was rejected again as the policies followed in the 1970s were still enforced.
Controversy
Due to its sexual themes and explicit scenes, the film was the cause of great controversy in Portugal in 1991 after it aired on RTP. Some deemed it inappropriate even for the watershed slot, while others actually appreciated its airing. The Archbishop of Braga D., Eurico Dias Nogueira, who watched the first half hour of the film, expressed his disgust, saying that he "had learned more in 10 minutes of the film than in his entire life" about sexual practices. The film aired again on RTP2, almost unnoticed.
Box office
In France, the film sold 1,730,874 tickets, grossing approximately . In Germany, where it released in 1978, the film sold 693,628 tickets, grossing approximately . Combined, the film sold 2,424,502 tickets and grossed approximately in France and Germany.
