| South African-born Ian Kerkhof has never been a film-maker to take lightly. Incredibly prolific he has made features, documentaries and a host of challenging short films which deal with themes of violence and eroticism. This film was premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival and screened at the Berlinale, before a festival run that included the Chicago and New York Underground.
A European gangster, on the run from the Japanese yakuza he has double-crossed, becomes involved in an intense sexual and spiritual relationship with a young Japanese girl (porn actress Mai Hoshimo) waiting for the inevitable moment when the yakuza will arrive and his death will be upon him. With uncompromising sado/sexual directness, Kerkhof has constructed a film that is a natural progression from Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris and Nagisa Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses. Brilliantly paced and directed, the film is explicit in the extreme and patrons are warned that if they are likely to be offended by scenes of penetrative copulation, ejaculation, sadism and masochism and the correlating of sexual behaviour with intimations of religious ecstacy that it is best to stay away. For those receptive enough, this film will be an experience never to be forgotten. |
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