Popular reviews

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  Review by Disgustipated ★★★★★ 49

  Thanatos, Eros and the Art of Zen - Japanese Erotic Cinema Project - #1

  I went to see this film at the cinema on my own. Nobody else could go but I wanted to anyway because I am precipitously dementing into a Sion Sono fan. And it has the word porno in the title, so there is that.

  The movie finished. There was a couple sitting next to me wearing jumpsuits. The woman in a red jumpsuit turned to her partner in a yellow jumpsuit and asked him what he thought the film was about. The man in the yellow jumpsuit looked flummoxed, he could not respond. An increasing look of constipation wrinkled his face as he was obviously trying…

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  Review by Gabrielle ★★★★★ 7

  100/100

  Certainly the most fascinating movie of the year. Sono turns pornography into high art with this surrealist, extremely meta insane ride of a movie that is as visually gorgeous as it is mindfucking. Monstruous performances, specially by Ami Tomite - a fucking beast in here -, genius perspective twists and role reversals throughout and so many possible readings that "rich" doesn't quite cover the thematic range of the film. Like with any Sono film, I have to sleep on it and rewatch it a few times before articulating an actual review. A masterpiece.

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  Review by The Clyde ★★★★★ 5

  "I'm a virgin. A virgin but a whore."

  I guess that the day they gave the greenlight to this film went like this:

  Place: Nikkatsu's Production Studio

  Nikkatsu Executive #1
  Good morning Mr. Sono! How are you today?

  *Sono enters the meeting and sits. Then he lights up a cigarette*

  Sion Sono
  Not bad.

  Nikkatsu Executive #2
  The reason why we have summoned you here today is because we want to produce your next feature film.

  *Sono takes a long drag, listening with interest*

  Nikkatsu Executive #3
  Are you ready to begin filming as soon as possible? We are aware that last year you made five films, so we understand if you are tired and want to take a little…

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  Review by Liz ★★★★

  The pink film:
  1. One sex scene every ten minutes
  2. At least one hour long
  3. Anything else goes

  Sono takes the roman porno and turns it inside out, directly confronting and taking its audience, its creators, and the entirety of Japanese society to task for its hypocritical male-dictated standards of freedom and sexuality. La Chinoise is the easiest comparison -- a skin film in the making; the long takes, bold primary colors, and the anarchic use of music torn straight out of Godard's cinematic little red book.

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  Review by amanda<3 ★ 3

  EDIT: SION SONO IS AN ABUSER AND I NO LONGER STAND BY THIS REVIEW OR LIKE THE FILM

  "i want to be a man so i can kill all of them"

  sion sono creates a dream-like surrealist atmosphere to make fun of the pornography industry and promote feminism in an almost fourth-wall breaking way. brilliantly absurd and absolutely fucking insane, but also smartly written and satirical. a very unconventional and abrupt twist 30 minutes into the film completely changes one's perspective on it. it explores the complexities of how misogyny affects young women in a very competitive and hectic industry. it shows how lesbians are fetishized by doing exactly what it's making fun of. it's not afraid to show obscene sex and violence and often blurs the line between the two. the elegant and beautiful classical compositions contrast with the graphic sexual content in a quite bizarre and jarring way.

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  Review by holli ★★ 1

  can men stop trying to make movies about female sexuality because they will never understand it? and can other men stop praising these men for making said movies when they also know absolutely nothing about female sexuality? thanks ❤

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  Review by Deckk ★★ 2

  100-word review: Sion Sono appears to like playing around with surrealism — the question 'What is, and what isn't, real?' which is a motif I've liked aplenty in the past, but, judging by this and Tag, not from Sono, whose particular style of filmmaking doesn't seem to be my cup of art house tea. A pity, since I do wanna watch Love Exposure at some point, but when these shorter endeavours aren't easing me into the man's filmography, such a four-hour opus begins to look all the more daunting. I simply don't look to be able to derive much meaning from Antiporno.

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  Review by Rafael Jovine ★★★★½ 15

  Action! - Love, Lust And Violence: Sion Sono's Inland Empire W/ The Night Nutter, Joe Mighty Castillo, The Other Guys.... and Jeff

  犬のように吠える人はいるが、猫のように鳴く人はいない。

  In an hour and almost fifteen minutes, Sion Sono offers us with a narrative filled in meta commentary, the bizarre, and the absurd, and at the same time feels like a return to his early days directing short films, with the exception that this time he has the opportunity to do something of a larger and better production. The simple and colorful sets contrast nicely with the costumes and, in a strange way, even suit with the performances, in which Ami Tomite shines as this girl who must pretend to be two entirely different persons until, gradually,…

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★

  Hahaha. WTF. Antiporno is oppressively weird but totally fascinating. It's an examination of sex and porn in Japanese culture, but it certainly doesn't hold back in exploring it. It is a very liberal experience, looking at many aspects of sex through its female lead and with absolutely no restraint. Throughout its surreal wanderings, Antiporno approaches sex from a lot of different angles, examining virginity, humiliation, pornography, nudity, pleasure, pain, nakedness, freedom, gender, whoredom, and desire. It reminded me of David Lynch's Inland Empire in the way it looks at women in media, as well as in how both films make it hard to discern what is real and what isn't. Having said that, Antiporno is a lot more focused and despite being…

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  Review by Madeleine ★★★★★ 1

  The most incredible movie about female sexual dysfunction resulting from the pressures and expectations of a culture controlled by men made by a shockingly self aware pervert that I’ve ever seen

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  Review by braden ★★★★ 2

  “This isn’t my life! This isn’t my existence!”

  Apparently tasked with making a soft porn film for a studio’s reboot of their ‘romantic porn’ sub-genre - limited only by the two rules of an 80 minute runtime and a sex scene every ten minutes - Sion Sono made the very bold move of subverting and criticising everything Japan’s exploitative adult film industry is about in his aptly titled Antiporno. It’s highly surreal in imagery and plot, but appropriately unsubtle in its messages about male gaze and the treatment of women in media; angrily and unrelentingly getting the point across with intense performances and rapidly increasing insanity. It’s difficult to watch at times, but always captivating despite the overwhelming weirdness and aggression, and incredibly powerful in its subversion of the genre and values.

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  Review by Luca ★★★★½ 1

  There is no way anybody except for Sion Sono could make or even think of this movie. It’s a very enthralling and experimental satire that is absolutely worth it’s very short runtime. The cinematography is gorgeous and adds visual stimulus to this intense ride.