Tweet
Released by: 88 Films
Released on: January 21st, 2025.
Director: Teruo Ishii
Cast: Sada Abe, Mitsuko Aoi, Rika Fujie
Year: 1969
Purchase From Amazon
Love & Crime – Movie Review:
Teruo Ishii’s 1969 Toei film, Love & Crime, is an anthology film of sorts that offers up a quartet of short stories based on real-life crimes against women in Japan over the years. The film opens with Dr. Murase (Teruo Yoshida), a medical examiner, performing an autopsy on the corpse of his wife, Yukiko. The autopsy reveals the fact that someone recently ejaculated inside of her – a clue! – and as he sets out hoping to solve the mystery of her death, he reviews four different cases.
First up, we travel to 1961 where a hotel owner named Chiyu Saito (Mitsuko Aoi) suspects that her husband, Kosuke (Kenjirô Ishiyama), is fooling around on her behind her back. It turns out that her suspicions are correct and that Kosuke is having an affair with Chiyu's assistant, Kinue Munakata (Rika Fujie) but unaware of this, Chiyu talks to Kinue about the problems she's having with her husband. Before you know it, Kiune is trying to talk Kosuke into murdering Chiyu, who has no idea that his mistress is having a second affair with a man named Shibuya (Takashi Fujiki).
The second story is set in the 1930s where Sada Abe (Yukie Kagawa), a former prostitute now working as a waitress. It turns out that she once had an affair with her boss, Kichizo Ishisa (Eiji Wakasugi), that would end up in murder. We see all of this play out through a series of flashbacks that detail her story. Interestingly enough, the actual Sada Abe shows up in this piece to tell her side of the story.
Story number three follows a former army man named Yoshio Kodaira (Asao Koike) who served in the Second World War and operated in Japan as essentially a serial killer, murdering seven females before the law caught up with him. The story opens with Yoshio already in jail and from here he spills his guts about the sexual assault and murder he was responsible for over his life of crime, while the movie shows us what happened.
Last but not least, the fourth story introduces us to a woman named Oden (Teruko Yumi) who is set to be executed by beheading. Flashbacks let us in on how her parents had arranged for her to be married to a man named Naminosuke (Shin'ichirô Hayashi) despite the fact that she wasn't ever in love with him and suffered from leprosy. When she starts looking for sexual satisfaction outside the marriage, he catches her in the act and the man she's having the affair with kills him. Her life goes downhill from there and she winds up on death row.
Never afraid to show off the seedy side of its four main stories, Love & Crime is a really solid exploitation picture that offers up all the sex and violence you’d expect, given its subject matter. At the same time, if the movie fails to offer up much in the way of poignant social commentary, it’s as visually impressive as it is blatantly exploitative. How much you get out of it will depend what you’re going into it for. If it’s social-political insight into Japan’s cultural history of misogyny, you’ll find the movie a bit light, but if it’s vintage sleaze shot through a very artistic lens with impressive production values and strong performances to match a great eye for period detail, then this one delivers. While the bookending segments don’t really amount to much of worth, the four tells that make up the bulk of the movie’s running time are well-told and quite interesting.
Love & Crime – Blu-ray Review:
88 Films bring Love & Crime to Blu-ray framed in 2.35.1 widescreen in AVC encoded 1080p high definition taking up 27.4GBs of space on a 50GB disc. Colors are reproduced quite nicely, looking bright and bold without appearing oversaturated or artificially boosted (though a portion of the movie does shift to black and white for a stint) and black levels are good. Skin tones look nice and natural throughout. There aren’t any problems with noticeable compression artifacts, noise reduction or edge enhancement and the image stable and very clean, showing no real print damage, dirt or debris aside from a few minor specks and scratches. Overall, this looks pretty good.
A Japanese language 24-bit LPCM 2.0 Mono option is provided with optional English Subtitles. There’s a tiny bit of sibilance in a few spots but otherwise the audio is fine regardless of which track you go for. The score sounds pretty decent and there are no issues with any hiss or distortion.
An audio Commentary by Jasper Sharp and Amber T. provides plenty of welcome information about the movie, as the pair discuss the popularity of anthology films in Japan, the bridging devices employed in this movie, what sets Ishii’s films apart from so many of his contemporaries, how Toei was trying to change with the times when this movie was produced, details on the cast and crew that worked on the film, the different cases that inspired the movie, other films that have used similar source material and lots more.
Kiss Of Death is an eighteen-minute introduction of sorts where Mark Schilling goes over the state of the Japanese film industry and Toei in particular around the period that this movie was made, including dabbling in stronger content to compete with the pink films that were becoming popular at the time, how Teruo Ishii wound up making this movie and some of the themes, ideas and influences that work their way into the movie.
Finishing up the extras is a still gallery, a trailer for the feature, menus and chapter selection options. This release also comes with some reversible cover sleeve art featuring original on one side and newly commissioned artwork by Ilan Sheady on the opposite side, as well as a numbered obi stip. Included inside the case alongside the Blu-ray and DVD discs is a full color insert booklet containing cast and crew information as well as an interesting essay on the film penned by Nathan Stuart that is complimented by a selection of archival still photos.
Love & Crime - The Final Word:
Love & Crime is an entertaining mix of sleazy exploitation and arthouse-style direction that, if light on the social commentary you might expect, delivers a solid mix of lurid thrills and strong production values. The Blu-ray release from 88 Films is a strong one, presenting the movie in a very nice presentation and a decent selection of extra features as well. As such, the movie comes easily recommended for fans of Japanese exploitation pictures of a certain vintage.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized Love & Crime Blu-ray screen caps!
