Cheap Wife To Be Sacrificed (DVD) (Masaru Konuma) Price

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Customer Reviews of Wife To Be Sacrificed

Would be five stars - but for shoddy presesentation
Wow! This is an amazing movie - although I had to laugh when I read another review that attempted a deeper political reading of the material than I'm sure was intended. (For that sort of thing see Koji Wakamatsu.) It irks me that in the case of something like this it's shameful to cop to having enjoyed it just because.

It's clearly a commercial venture. It does have some depth - as does anything that zeros in on our taboos with a sledgehammer. And, in it's way it is a facinating, well-made and "entertaining" work. It's also an incredible cultural document. The Japanese film industry has spawned a number of unique genres over the years, and this is a great example of something that never quite had an equivalent anywhere else.

This is definitely not for everyone, though. (I saw this with a Japanese friend who declared about two thirds of the way through that the Konuma was "not a human being.")

The performances are very good - Naomi Tani radiates star quality. The cinematography is lovely and the tape is letterboxed.

Unfortunately, Kim Stim's transfer quality is very poor indeed. I checked two tapes and both exhibited distracting ghosts of images from unrelated productions - particularly bad during dark scenes. I haven't seen the DVD yet, but if this was a problem with their master it could show up there too. And if they were careless enough to release a VHS of this quality I don't think I want to risk the cash to find out if the DVD transfer is any better.

Let's hope more of these films (the better ones) become available here - and that they are given the presentation that they deserve.

Pink poltics
'Wife' is one of the best examples of the Japanese Film Industry's notorious pink films made in 1974 by Nikkatsu Studios. Starring the Queen of Japanese SM Naomi Tani, 'Wife' is the story of an abducted woman who overpowers her abusive husband by succumbing to the pleasures of masochism. The film articulates a social commentary through the depiction of graphic SM scenes that fuction as a metaphor for gender relations in Japanese society. The underlying theme of the movie is to suggest that there is an impossibility of romantic love between japanese men and women and that sadism and masochism are possibly alternative forms of love than those of social obligation or the reani kekkon (Love marriages). The film asks us (well the japanese of 1974) to take a closer look at our realtionships to each other and roles within society which may be in itself the bigger of SM relationship than that of the personal one depicted in the pink film. Overall its a gruelling film to watch but Pasolini's SALO was never intended to be fun entertainment either. The amazon video tape reviewed here is a quality transfer from the original uncensored Japanese 35mm print which retains the crystalline cinematography and minimal soundtrack. The film is subtitled which is required for an artistic film with such a rare tension between cruelty and beauty.