48
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasTokyo Decadence is likely to stay with you long after the theater lights come up.
- 78Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovAustin ChronicleMarc SavlovWhether or not Murakami intended this rambling, erotic nightmare as a metaphor for modern-day Japan is a question I'm not going to get into here, but the fact remains, Tokyo Decadence is a powerful, disturbing film, teeming with episodes of rampant passion, abuse, and beauty.
- 63ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliTokyo Decadence will appeal to only a select few. The movie is rated NC-17 for a reason -- it doesn't pull any punches, and there's virtually nothing it won't risk putting on screen. Those who take a chance on this film may be shocked by what it offers, but, regardless of their opinion of the story, the overall experience won't soon be forgotten.
- 50San Francisco ChroniclePeter StackSan Francisco ChroniclePeter StackTokyo Decadence is not an action picture, blue or otherwise. Murakami almost batters you with his slow, deliberate style, and in the end the film ventures into puzzling bravura sequences that seem hard to grasp for someone outside Japanese culture. Throughout, Murakami subtly accompanies his work with strains from the introduction to an aria from Verdi's ''Don Carlo'' where the aggrieved King Philip sings ''she never loved me.'' [18 June 1993, p.C12]
- 40The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenTokyo Decadence is much better at evoking a creepy urban sophistication than at revealing character or telling a story.
- This is not, by any standard, entertainment. It is, from time to time, almost too agonising to watch: but at least, in its unrelenting, occasionally powerful way, it shows how sex and violence can sometimes, in their capacity for degradation, be brothers under the crawly skin.
- A few moments of black comedy and some pointed jabs at contemporary Japanese society cannot redeem this plotless, graphically gruesome ordeal.
- 25Portland OregonianPortland OregonianBut despite its audacious sexuality, Tokyo Decadence isn't really honest about its pornography -- or its politics. The sex scenes are more about the twisted uses of power than they are about erotica. And like a movie that purports to be anti-violent but racks up a dougle-digit body count to make its point, the film relies too much on sexual excess to make a persuasive argument against it. Its pretensions fail to conceal the emptiness at the heart of Murakami's vision. [30 July 1993, p.AE23]
- 20Time OutTime OutLacking the intellectual, emotional and philosophical rigours of, say, a film by Oshima, this brazenly voyeuristic nonsense is finally as incoherent and unilluminating as it's hackneyed.