The Japanese capital always looks fabulous on film, and Tokyo
Decadence is no exception. Ai (Miho Nikaido) is a prostitute
specialising in bondage and domination, who we follow on a series of
hotel encounters that are by turns comic, unsettling and painful to
watch. Murakami's vision of skyscrapers and bondage as Japanese
ritual is all hyper-real sheen and surface. But the ravishing
composition is juxtaposed with Ai's descent into nihilism and
self-abnegation. This isn't popcorn decadence, packaged for cinema
consumption; you are left genuinely disturbed.
