Artwork by Ariel Esteban Cayer
Rei (Sawa Suzuki), a seasoned dominatrix and aspiring actor, spends her days rehearsing experimental theatre and her nights whipping straightlaced salarymen into ecstasy. Between appointments, she meets Ayumi (Reiko Kataoka), a call-girl bound to be the wife of a doctor or lawyer. The women bring us into their nocturnal orbit: a life dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, camaraderie, and the joys of hanging out in the thriving, horny, districts of Shinjuku and Shibuya, at the terminus of the Japanese Bubble era.Â
Marketed in some territories as a sequel to Ryu Murakami’s moody Tokyo Decadence (1992), Banmei Takahashi’s A New Love in Tokyo unfolds as its tonal opposite: less somber sexploitation than unexpectedly sex-positive workplace comedy. Based on a book of essays by Kei Shimamoto and Nobuyoshi Araki that brings the reader into an erotic underworld, the film is also notable for featuring the cult photographer’s work. A glimpse into a bygone era of Japanese eroticism, A New Love in Tokyo provided pink film, V-cinema and Director’s Company veteran Banmei Takahashi (Door, Door II) with a bridge towards a broader range of human experience.