Orgies Of Edo — Orgies Of Edo( Blu Ray)

It’s not very often that you come across a film that attempts to balance classy-to-lavish film-making and dramatic storytelling, with shocking depravity, gore and a growing sense oddness. But that’s exactly what this late 1960’s Japanese film attempts, and really succeeds in doing. Following on from their recent release of Horror Of Malformed Man, here on Arrow Video we get a much needed Blu Ray release of this early film from director Teruo Ishii.

Released in 1969 Orgies Of Edo is a bizarre crossbreed between very well filmed & lushly costumed Japanese period drama, sleazed & perverse sexploitation, and bloody red spurting horror- with more than a few generous grinds of weird-ness added in. It’s an analogy/portmanteau film bringing together three stories from the Edo period in Japan (1615 – 1868), with each tale getting steadily more sleazy, perverse & unhinged.

Each of the stories last around the thirty-minute mark, and there’s no joining story- with each flowing together; which adds an extra element of surprise/ oddness to the mix. The first tale tells of two sisters- one is forced into prostitution to pay her debuts and along the way we  get a troubling love triangle, some breathing-taking shots, and a beautiful but- unsettling finale that sees rope bondage & whippings taking place in a ornate snow falling garden. 
The next tale is about a rich lady & her servant- she is obsessed with having sex with deformed & unusually looking men-  this tale starts off with two dwarfs trying to rape the women, before she chases after her with a whip. As this section goes on we get snake swallowing performers, creepy burnt face perverts, self-mutilation, and spurting gore.
The final story focuses on a powerful lord obsessed with torturing women-  he finds his perfect partner who’s willing to take his perverse batterings. This one is really very deranged, as early on we get a scene where a group of  topless women  dressed in red are  bloody gorged by bulls with fire lit horns. As it goes on we get a loads more oddness & sleaze, which along the way takes in a woman been painted completely gold & sat in a hall of mirrors, and a brutal caesarean section.

I very much enjoyed the surreal & unbalancing flow of Teruo Ishii other recent Horror Of Malformed Man, but Orgies Of Edo really blows that out of the water with its shock & depravity- so if you enjoyed that  film, but wanted something more extreme, then this is most definitely for you.

Extra wise, unfortunately, there’s not a lot on the disc- aside from an around twenty-minute interview Patrick Maccias, where he discusses the film, and it’s impact- this is informative & interesting enough, it just would have been nice to have a bit more. Other than this we get an original trailer. Apparently, the released version of the film comes with a booklet featuring a new write-up about the film from oriental film expert Tom Mes- but as we’ve only got a screener disc I can’t comment on this. The new 1080p scan of the film is extremely good, really enhancing both the more classy elements & of course the gore/ depravity too.

If you enjoy brutal & strange transgressive cinema you really have to see Orgies Of Edo- as it really is an unforgettable experience. Let's hope Arrow has plans to release more of Teruo Ishii films in the near future- as he certainly is an artful, yet deranged talent.