Overview: Japan’s legendary King of Cult Teruo Ishii (Horrors of Malformed Men, Shogun’s Joy of Torture) delivers four dramatized tales of real-life crimes of passion involving women across the ages in this grotesque anthology featuring the stories of the Hotel Nihonkaku Murders, the notorious poison wife and last woman in Japan to be executed by beheading, Oden Takahashi, the brutal serial killer Yoshio Kodaira and the story of Sada Abe, the infamous castrative featured in Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses.

Blu-ray Verdict: That’s right folks, Director Teruo Ishii delivers four dramatized tales of real-life crimes of passion involving women across the ages in this grotesque anthology entitled Love And Crime.

In truth, Teruo Ishii is no stranger to the format of Love and Crime, That is having several short stories with a common theme making up the runtime of the film. And so here within the titled In Love and Crime the man himself Ishii, tells four stories from real life in which the common denominator is passionate crimes.

Now, for all those wondering, and rightly so, the level of gore and torture is lower than what one has usually become accustomed to when watching Ishii’s torture series, but holds up really well anyway, in my humble opinion.

Furthermore, Love and Crime is one of those rare gems that actually displays really great acting, accentuating the stories the film tell. Also noteworthy is that Ishii has somehow managed to gather the most beautiful women in Japan for the roles in Love and Crime. Normally the lead actress in these four films are highly charismatic, but here Ishii has rounded up a good eight women who could have been the Primadonna’s of the age, that is for sure.

As always, there is a great combination of nudity, violence and Japanese silliness, which I like and appreciate a lot from a visual standpoint, and as the title suggests, these stories are all about evil intrigues and brutal crimes.

A scene in the forensic department sets the tone for the extremely bloody story right at the beginning, and with the episode about a brutal serial killer, staged in black and white, Ishii repeatedly proves his stylistic mastery. At times I was strongly reminded of John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, others very reminiscent of some CSI TV killer moments!

In closing, I haven’t revisited Ishii and his work for maybe a decade so to have these four stories come at me all grouped together, well, they are pretty wild. His sensibilities for the grotesque are in no way hindered by basing the action on true events, so know that going in too!

Bonus Features:
HIGH DEFINITION BLU-RAY PRESENTATION IN 2.35:1 ASPECT RATIO
ORIGINAL MONO 2.0 AUDIO WITH NEW ENGLISH SUBTITLES
AUDIO COMMENTARY BY JASPER SHARP & AMBER T.
BRAND NEW FILMED INTRODUCTION BY MARK SCHILLING
STILLS GALLERY
TRAILER
ORIGINAL AND NEWLY COMMISSIONED ARTWORK BY ILAN SHEADY
LIMITED EDITION INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED OBI STRIP
LIMITED EDITION BOOKLET

Official Purchase Link