Product Details

• Actors: Tatsuya Fuji, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takahiro Tamura, Takuzô Kawatani, Akiyoshi Fujiwara
• Directors: Nagisa Ôshima
• Writers: Nagisa Ôshima, Itoko Namura
• Producers: Anatole Dauman, Shigeru Wakatsuki
• Format: PAL
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Umbrella Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: June 3, 2008
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0019C6CNM
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #419,242 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Empire of the Passions (Ai no borei) (In the Realm of Passion) [NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2&4 Import - Australia]" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Australia released, PAL/Region 2.4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: Japanese ( Mono ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (1.78:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Cast/Crew Interview(s), Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: A young man has an affair with an older woman. He is very jealous of her husband and decides that they should kill him. One night, after the husband had plenty of sake to drink and was in bed, they strangle him and dump his body down a well. To avert any SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, ...Empire of the Passions ( Ai no borei ) ( In the Realm of Passion )

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One (...) of a movie where sex and art converge in good taste, February 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Realm of Passion (DVD)

we are used to believe that sex and art in movies are hard to combine. A small mistake, a single forced note and the movie will degenerate in a porno movie or just a kitch. Ngisa Oshima has passed this mountain high obstacle at stratosferic altitude.
Lanscapes and interiors interact to call for an atmopsphere of darkness, surreal, sexual passion and murderous instinct. Finaly seeing genitalia in this movie does not appear to be just another porno or gratuitous visual "sensation". The lanscape pictures are also spectacular. "Good" is too little for this movie to say. ATTENTION: MANY CUT VERSIONS IN RENTAL STORES OUT THERE. GET YOUR UNRATED COPY FROM SOMEWHERE OR ELESE YOU DEAL WITH THE "RELIGIOUS SCHOOL" VERSION.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars no eroticism but dark and creepy film work., October 22, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: In the Realm of Passion (DVD)

Nagisa Oshima's follow up to his hit IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES is some wath of a disappointment, but is good too, making it so so film (a lot of them). But I do not know why TLA VIDEO AND DVD GUIDE calls it "erotic ghost story of unremitting passion". 1 could be that there was some sex scenes cut from the film (the video cover says it to be 180 mins but TLA says 110 mins), but as IMDB.com recalls that there are no missing scenes reported. Or 2 can be that film reviewers these days have forgotten wath real eroticism is, because there is nothing sexy at all in this film, and the only sex scenes in the film are too dark to see and not that nice to look at. Any way the story line is that a man and the woman he has had a affair with kill her husband to be together, but with a horror twist put into it as the man's ghost comes back to haunt them. Dark and creepy themed film.

1978. Fox. 108 MINS.

Rated R for General Tone and Some Sexuality.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sexy Countryside Melodrama, May 14, 2008

By 

Michael Kerjman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Realm of Passion (DVD)

At last, Oshima's movies were produced on DVD with reliable info on English subtitles: all the previous stuff just combined Japanese, French and Chinese wording, misleadingly mentioning a range of language options available.

Although contexts of these movies are understandable even without text ( Ai no corrida- ("In the Realm of the Senses" is a nice soft-porno work exploring mutilation and incest much prior to other Japanese movies of the end of the last twentieth century), The Empire of Passion (L' Empire de la passion / Ai no borei (Original Japenese with French Version Included - No English Options)) is a simple story of lust and love in the Japanese countryside of the ninetieth century fall, where emotions and traditional local mysticism emphasised on a backstage of sexual explorations.

Beautiful cast acting convincingly adds to positive comprehension of this ordinary melodrama.