Ayumi (Reiko Kataoka) juggles between her work as a call-girl and a life with a boyfriend unable to get into college. Soon, she meets Rei (Sawa Suzuki), a seasoned dominatrix aspiring to become a theatre actor, who spends her free time rehearsing with a troupe that blurring the line between the stage and the bedroom. At the terminus of the Japanese Bubble era, brilliantly evoked here by neon-lit streets and chic interiors, both women bring us into their nocturnal orbit: a life dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, camaraderie and the joys of hanging out in the thriving, horny districts of Shinjuku and Shibuya.
Marketed in some territories as a sequel to Ryu Murakami’s moody Tokyo Decadence (1992), Banmei Takahashi’s A New Love in Tokyo unfolds as its tonal opposite: less a somber sexploitation film than an unexpectedly sex-positive workplace comedy ripe for rediscovery. Based on a book of essays by Kei Shimamoto that brings the reader into a bustling erotic underworld, the film is also notable for featuring cult photographer Nobuyoshi Araki as one of its key collaborator. A glimpse into a bygone era of Japanese eroticism, A New Love in Tokyo provided pinku, V-cinema and Director’s Company veteran Banmei Takahashi (Door, Door II) with a bridge towards a broader range of human experience and pathos.
directed by: Banmei Takahashi
starring: Reiko Kataoka, Sawa Suzuki
1994 / 115 min / 1.85:1 / Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0
Additional info:
Region A Blu-ray
Interview with director Banmei Takahashi (19 minutes)
"About the Book": Interview with author Kei Shimamoto and magazine editor Akira Suei (6 minutes)
"The Real New Love in Tokyo": Interview with working dominatrix Mikako Fujishiro and actor Kanaka Shiba (17 minutes)
Booklet with new writing by Maari Sugawara, Dakota Noot, and Nikodem Karolak
Newly commissioned art by Joyce Lee
English SDH subtitles