ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Randy Victor Ian helps cover the Japanese roman porno beat for B&S About Movies.
If you haven’t yet learned about the true-life story of celebrity murderess Sada Abe, give director Noboru Tanaka’s roman porno A Woman Called Sada Abe a watch to start your journey down a bizarre rabbit hole.
Junko Miyashita delivers a fierce performance as the love-crazed Sada, a former geisha who starts an affair with the married Kishizo Ishida (Eimei Esumi). The two spend almost all of their time in a lodging room, occasionally taking breaks from their sexual obsession with each other to drink sake or eat something.
Sado-masochism, sex with food, sex in front of singing entertainers, and naturally, if you are at all familiar with Sada’s story, castration are all on tap. Tanaka framed and shot everything according to Japanese film censorship at the time, and the production values including cinematography and period set decoration and costumes are highly impressive.
Rather than feeling outright lurid, Tanaka crafts an intriguing look at how sexual obsession and Sada’s professed love for Ishida developed into an obsession that led to her killing him and wandering around Kyoto afterward with his severed penis on her person.
For those wondering about a comparison with Nagisa Ōshima’s 1976 version of the Sada Abe saga In the Realm of the Senses, I must admit that it has been longer than I care to mention since I have seen that film. Perhaps I need to rectify that situation soon.
A Woman Called Sada Abe is available on VOD, all leading digital platforms and Film Movement Plus from September 4, 2026.
