Aw, come on, TOPÁZU, bah! TOKYO DECADENCE. That's its name. Ai, the Japanese prostitute who gets involved in the S&M scene. TOKYO DECADENCE.The suggested retail price of this should be (on merit) about a quarter. Then you'd still be a dime and a nickel overcharged, but hey, somebody has to make a living...S&M in Japan...50 SHADES OF GREY it is not. Although you will feel yourself turning greyer and greyer if you sit there watching the damn thing which is about 10 hours long... or so it feels.Very enticing subject matter filmed entirely wrong. Very little bondage, just weird behavior. Lots and lots of weird behavior in copious streams of it. Ugly yuck. You'll wish it was over within the first few minutes.Nudity, yes. Well-filmed and exciting, no. This is the kind of thing that you really shouldn't be wasting money, time or effort on. It is a sad, bleak, morose, grim piece of junk. I've had it for a long time, never gotten around to watching it, saved it as something for a special time. Did some research recently and discovered that there are several versions of this, and scrambled to make sure I bought a worthy copy. Yes, I have the Arrow 112 minute with English subtitles version, so I do have a worthy copy... But of an entirely unworthy subject. This is junk, people. Plain junk. Badly-lit junk. It is standout only in one department, graphic use of drugs. If you wanna watch something naughty, avoid this. You'd wilt like a daisy in the desert.The only good performance is by Mistress Saki. She is very slight (like reed-thin) but plays the part of the dark-minded mistress with considerable gusto. And the way she goes on, she has to be the real thing in real-life. But overlook this paragraph, because it is heavily influenced by just how stupendously horrible the other lot are. For her to rise head and shoulders above the rest, isn't an accomplishment.There are people in this Japanese pink film that have a very, very long way still to go on the evolutionary ladder before they could be remotely called human. Right now they have to call a snail 'Sir.' They nevertheless fill the screen with faces that shouldn't be seen. It makes for embarrassing viewing even when you are alone, it is that terribly atrociously bad.I had this unreal feeling... I bought something THIS bad? THIS stupid? Maybe the wrong disk was slipped into the box? Big practical joke, somebody clowning around with video camera?So boring and utterly inane as to make THE BROWN BUNNY seem like time well spent.If anybody still buys this after having read my warning, let me just pin the tail of the donkey onto them.

I checked this film out because I discovered it was written by one of Japan's most controversial writers, Ryu Murakami, who wrote the novel that Takashi Miike's AUDITION was based on. Murakami not only wrote the book of TOKYO DECADENCE, but he also adapted it for the screen and directed this adaptation to boot.Unfortunately, this turns out to be a near unwatchable bore, a film I could barely stand to sit through thanks to the subject matter. TOKYO DECADENCE explores the world of S&M and in particular the life of a submissive prostitute who's treated cruelly by her clients. Sadly, the experiences she undergoes sees her gradually losing her mind, building to a narrative climax of sorts.95% of this film is made up of near-pornographic fetish scenes of women being forced to undergo weird and humiliating sexual experiences. The acting is non-existent and the characterisation barely there; instead, Murakami seems to enjoy just wallowing in the sleaze and the degradation of women. Not my cup of tea at all, I'm afraid; a few atmospheric shots of the Tokyo skyline and the occasional scene of plotting fail to make this anywhere close to becoming a 'proper' film.

I saw the extremely edited version of this film for USA release and was completely disgusted. Not by the story or "sex" but by the absolute lack of discernible plot or point. The first half of the movie was intriguing and interesting, but at some point our heroine meets up with a stranger colleague who talks with her about her love problems (?) with someone (?) and gives her the sage advice to go to him and tell him her feelings. (feelings? love interest? wha? who's he?) then the strange lady gives our heroine a pill, telling her it will give her courage. She takes the pill and then goes on a long, bizarre journey that makes no sense and ends up somewhere, meanwhile the strange woman dies of an overdose of something. Wha? Huh? Apparently the lost 23 minutes are the joining parts of the story. The movie ultimately made NO sense whatsoever. I'm guessing that all the glowing reviews are from the people who were blessed with those 23 minutes that I did not see.If the copy you are looking at is timed at under 130 minutes, don't waste your time.

Most films dealing with prostitution that I've seen have been very straight forward. In other words, the characters have been very loud, and to the point about what's going on in their heads. However, the lead character in Tokyo Decadence comes out differently than you might expect . In most films that portray prostitution as a hard and unsettling life, ( Whore, Leaving Las Vegas...) the main character is trying real hard to act like they enjoy what they're doing. But in Tokyo Decadence, it's quite the contrary, the lead character hardly says a word through the whole film. But you still learn so much from her expressions and way of dealing with the many different wack-job clients she has. (These include dominatrix, sadists, and necrophiles to name a few.) This is the first film like this where I've actually felt sympathy for the main character. She obviously has big dreams, presses forward to improve her situation in life constantly, only to be brought down by the degrating clientel she encounters every night. Overall, the acting is superb! As far as story is concerned, there is a serious lack of information given toward the middle of the movie. She keeps carrying around a picture of her with this guy, even going as far as buying expensive jewelry as good luck charms to get him back, ....but we don't know who he is, how she knows him, ..nothing. But despite, minor holes in the plot, the film never loses sight of the point it's trying to make. And as I said, subtlety is what makes this film powerful. It's what the characters aren't saying and showing that brings you closer to the film. One last note, the film DOES live up to it's NC-17 rating. But then again, most asian films do.