Tokyo Decadence [DVD] [2001] [US Import] [NTSC]

Yet underneath there are other elements at work. Tokyo Decadence is aptly titled for it is more about the decadence of material wealth, which Tokyo represents to many Japanese, and the abusiveness and emptiness such decadence evokes. Ai is a victim of those elements, and her lost innocence, emptiness and directionless wandering are the elements of modern Japanese tragedy.

Tokyo Decadence has been packaged as a titillating sex film, exploiting the myth of Asian exoticism, especially since the actors are not always acting. But the film is not a documentary and the characters are not typical of the Japanese sex trade, though Nikaido is excellent in her portrayal of an S&M call girl. Underneath the story is a broader theme that is rather familiar to modern Japanese literature and cinema; the surface elements, such as S&M, are vehicles to a larger theme concerning the absence of a soul or inner spirit in contemporary Japanese society. Hence, if you are not turned on by the erotic subject matter, perhaps you were not intended to be.

The thematic elements of Tokyo Decadence have been recurring in Japanese literature and cinema over the last century. From the beginning of Japan's rise to modern power over a hundred years ago, up through the present, there has been a popular theme among writers and filmmakers that Japan's soul has become empty or lost in Japan's quest to become modern, powerful, and imitative of the West. Tokyo Decadence is, I believe, another installment in that theme.

Having lived and worked in Japan, I understand the elements that Tokyo Decadence presents: feelings of a spiritless wanderer, life lost in anonymity, and of the desire for anything peculiar or unorthodox just to interrupt the cold momentum of daily life. But there is perhaps another theme in the film. It is interesting, in a society as safe and seemingly drug-free as Japan, that sex and violence are so popular among the video renting public; themes such as bondage, S&M and even rape are not unusual for men's magazines; and alcohol abuse, gambling and the sex trade are somewhat commonplace with ordinary Japanese businessmen. Maybe this is not strange to some Americans, but such things are seldom discussed openly in Japan, and Tokyo Decadence just may be a discussion of such things.

On a critical note, the film's final sequences tend to be rather confusing or irrelevant to many viewers, especially to those wanting to see a sex picture. Despite the problems, I still defend the final scenes because they express how absolutely pathetic and lost the main character really is, not for some trite reasons of morality, but because she is ultimately void of any sense of self-worth. My only real criticism has to do with the DVD itself, which is a poor transfer of the original film image, though this has nothing to do with the film's story and shouldn't discourage interested viewers.