SADA

Sada Abe, the woman who notoriously strangled and castrated her lover and became the basis for Nagisa Oshima’s masterpiece, IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES, may seem far removed from Obayashi’s young and pure women. But by rendering Sada into an innocent whose pure love for a sickly medical student is offered as the backstory for her life, the film emphasizes that her image is artificial, that Sada herself is "a movie"–and perhaps all the more tragic for being so. A technical tour de force, citing multiple facets of modern Japanese image culture, Sada won the FIPRESCI award at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. (Japan Society)

"Bursting with invention and trickery."
–David Stratton, Variety