Hisayasu Sato – Rafureshia AKA Sukebe-zuma: otto no rusu ni (1995)

From The Director Of Survey Map Ofia Paradise Lost And Love-Zero=Infinity

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the sledgehammer style of Hisayasu Sato helped redefine Japanese erotic cinema with carefully constructed characters that would walk the fine line between decadence and innocence. Known for his guerrilla techniques, using a style born out of constricted budgets, Sato’s raw camerawork accurately depicts the reality of modern life.

Rafureshia, or as it is also known, Wife in Heat: While Husband Is Away, is the darkly humorous story of three very different women and their search through their sexuality into the freedom that lies beyond it.

user comment from imdb.com:
Extremely Bizarre, Surreal, Funny, And Perverse Pinku Film From Hisayasu Sato…,

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Notorious pinku director, Hisayasu Sato, never ceases to amaze me with the high-caliber of films and amount of “vision” that he incorporates into what are basically soft-core sex films. I’m a huge pinku fan, and in a genre that has a lot of similar films, Sato’s works continually stand out as original, interesting, and often more perverse than many other genre entries. This is definitely true with RAFURESHIA. A completely strange film that I feel HAD to be a major influence on Takashi Miike’s VISITOR Q, RAFURESHIA is a black-comedy that focuses on some strange characters and their bizarre family-dynamics.

Several characters lives converge on a strange and fateful night. A man and his daughter (who share a completely unwholesome relationship…) who live on an isolated island are separated when the daughter becomes curious about the outside world. Another man, his wife, and his mother (who ALL share some strange relationships…) find that none of them are quite who they seem to be. When these two families and their secret lives inadvertently collide – it makes for some strange happenings. Throw in a Yakuza member, some friendly but horny bums, a tranny hooker, and a few other random characters, and RAFURESHIA becomes an all-out free-for-all of strangeness…

A great and truly funny film with some seriously demented moments, RAFURESHIA will be of interest to pinku fans and those that enjoy bizarre exploitation cinema. Again, very similar to VISITOR Q in tone, if not necessarily content – fans of that film will probably enjoy this one as well. Sato always proves to be about the most interesting director in the pinku realm, eschewing most of the common genre elements for more bizarre and interesting story lines. RAFURESHIA is much “lighter” in tone than some of Sato’s other, more nihilistic and “cold” works – but I think he pulled this one off perfectly. Definitely worth a look…8.5/10