In what dark constellation, in which hellish nebula, would something like Nagisa Oshima's feral In the Realm of the Senses ever be fully accepted? Set in 1936, the same year Hirohito would escape a military-led mutiny and a year before the Japanese invasion of China, Oshima centers on the true story of a pair of obsessed lovers (Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda) who indulge in all manner of ravenous copulation, including long bouts of BDSM, in hopes of proving their passion for one another.

To escape inevitable censorship in his home country, Oshima, long considered the enfant terrible of the Japanese New Wave, set up Senses as a French production and sent all his unfinished prints to France. Upon its screening at the 1976 New York Film Festival, its lethal reputation was solidified when it was seized by US customs. It overcame similar censorship hurdles in Germany, Canada, and the UK before an unfinished VHS copy was released widely in 1990. Now, in conjunction with a New York Film Festival and a recent, generous retrospective at Brooklyn's BAM Cinematek, Criterion is giving Senses and the equally provocative Empire of Passion a proper release.

Sada Abe (Matsuda) finds her lust reawakened when her female lover, a co-worker at a country inn, gives her a glimpse of their master (Fuji) making love. When Abe is later revealed as a one-time prostitute by a homeless ex-customer, she takes the chance to reacquaint herself with the male anatomy, even as the bum finds himself unable to get it up. Without apprehension or shame, we witness a close-up of the homeless man rubbing his member while Sada exposes herself. Earlier, Oshima carefully gives us a glimpse of the unsimulated sex between the master and his wife. The man is not hiding his agenda.

Later, the master takes Sada and thus begins a tumultuous, often jaw-dropping exploration of passion, obsession and carnality. Amongst their scandalous deeds: beatings and knife play, a voyeuristic tour-de-force as the master makes love to an elderly geisha at Sada's request, and, in its final quarter, a fondness for asphyxiation that leads to the harrowing climax (no pun intended). The film's most controversial scene involves Sada clutching the genitals of a young boy. Part shocking real-life account and part lunatic allegory, Senses disregards the fact that the real Sada became a national icon for romantics and a disputed feminist lynchpin in Japan.

With provocateurs the likes of Gaspar Noe and Larry Clark running around, it'd be easy to dismiss the effect Senses had on Japanese film culture and its surmounting levels of perversity. Though it may not have aged as well as Oshima's early work (Night and Fog in Japan, Death by Hanging, the monumental The Sun's Burial), Oshima's late era work still displays a vicious fascination and a strange attitude towards abstract narratives. The Village Voice's J. Hoberman went as far as to liken him to Godard. The fact is that few directors had the cojones to pull off the sort of firebrand filmmaking Oshima dealt directly in. If you've seen the film, pun intended. If not, wear a helmet.

Criterion's DVD includes commentary from critic Tony Rayns, a new interview with Fuji, another interview (from 1976) with the cast and crew, and deleted scenes.

Aka Ai no corrida.