A Woman Called Sada Abe

Based on the shocking true story of a geisha and sex worker who accidentally killed her lover in a lustful haze of unbridled passion and kinky sex, A Woman Called Sada Abe is a watershed of hallucinatory erotic cinema. Director Noboru Tanaka, who rose to prominence as one of Nikkatsu’s leading Roman Porno auteurs, framed the tale as both a “true document” and an ode to decadence that lays bare the candid details of the infamous couple’s obsessive relationship. Exquisitely shot with striking period piece production design and expressive mise en scene, the film’s raw emotional power is further exemplified by the bold and inspired performance of pink film and Roman Porno super starlet, Junko Miyashita. Preceding Nagisa Oshima’s renowned telling of the same sensationalized crime, In the Realm of the Senses, by a year, A Woman Called Sada Abe, “ is more intimate, more cinematically stylized and arguably more erotic." - Jasper Sharp, Midnight Eye