The setting is Japan in 1825, during the Tokugawa Shogunate. The current shogun has 54 children so as you’d expect finding suitable wives and husbands for all of them is quite a challenge. The immediate problem is the Princess Kyohime (Miki Sugimoto). Finally it is decided that Lord Tadateru Ogura (Hiroshi Nawa) would be a suitable match.
This lord is not pleased at the prospect. He is a middle-aged virgin with zero desire to marry. The princess for her part is unhappy about having to live in Kyushu which she considers to be a kind of barbaric hicksville.
She’s been doing some research on a wife’s marital duties, perusing instructional manuals on the subject. She is concerned that some of the positions look rather uncomfortable but overall she’s looking forward to losing her virginity.
Sadly her wedding night is a major disappointment. The bliss she anticipated does not eventuate.
This is a problem for Lord Ogura. If the shogun finds out that his daughter is disappointed in her husband he is likely to be very annoyed.
Lord Ogura’s chief advisor decided that his lord needs to undergo some intensive training. His lack of sexual prowess is due largely to inexperience. The advisor has three young lady assistants who undertake his training, He also has a secret weapon. It has just arrived in a crate from Paris. It is a French Doll. The doll is in fact a gorgeous French babe, Sandra (Sandra Julien). Soon Lord Ogura is obsessed with her.
This does not solve the princess’s problem.
Lord Ogura comes up with a fiendish plan. If he cannot enjoy connubial bliss then no-one will. He bans sex throughout his domain.
After this the movie gets more and more bizarre. It’s pointless to try to describe what happens. You have to see it to believe it and when you’ve seen it you still won’t believe it.
Fans of Norifumi Suzuki’s movies will know that he had a bit of an obsession with Catholicism. That obsession figures in this movie, in ways that make very little sense.
As a sex comedy it is very very funny although in a totally deranged way. It should be mentioned as an aside that sex comedies are something the Japanese do extremely well.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is the feel of the movie. Many of the sets have a kind of fairy tale feel and there are scenes that look like they’re shot through the proscenium arch of a theatre. There is a play within a play. With the voiceover narration as well it appears that Suzuki was aiming for a fairy tale or folk tale or storybook feel.
The subject matter certainly suggests that Suzuki intended the movie to be a satirical comment on censorship. There’s also a bizarre seppuku scene, this coming just a couple of years after celebrated Japanese writer Yukio Mishima’s pubic act of seppuku.
Tokugawa Sex Ban is wild and crazy but it’s pleasingly oddball and it’s sexy and it’s funny and it’s highly recommended.
The movie looks lovely on Mondo Macabro’s Blu-Ray release. There’s an excellent exhaustively detailed audio commentary by Jasper Sharp.
Norifumi Suzuki made some extraordinary movies including several featuring Miki Sugimoto, most notably Sex and Fury, Girl Boss Revenge (Sukeban, 1973) and Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom.
Sandra Julien was clearly cast in this movie after the successful Japanese release of I Am a Nymphomaniac (1971).
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