"Nagisa Oshima will probably be remembered best for his groundbreaking and beautiful hardcore film In the Realm of the Senses, but this is a wonderful one. Breathtakingly shot, with a fantastic, memorable score, and great performances by David Bowie, Tom Conti, and “Beat” Takeshi Kitano."

"A story about compassion and forgiveness set in a World War II Japanese prison camp, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence seems to improve with age and repeated viewings. The screenplay, by Nagisa Oshima and Paul Mayersberg, based on a book by Laurens van der Post, is oblique, brutal, poignant. Tom Conti, David Bowie, and Takeshi Kitano all give first-rate performances, and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score is heartbreaking. The last five minutes never fail to destroy me"

"I’m a huge fan of Nagisa Oshima, and Empire of Passion and Violence at Noon are two of my favorites of his that Criterion has released. They give a good example of both his shifting stylistic capabilities as well as his consistently provocative and trenchant thematic tendencies. While both these films deal with elements of sexual obsession, predation, and social hegemony, on the surface they are totally distinct, Empire being a gorgeous, classically styled ghost story and Violence at Noon being a fractured, modernist New Wave masterpiece."

"I’m a huge fan of Nagisa Oshima, and Empire of Passion and Violence at Noon are two of my favorites of his that Criterion has released. They give a good example of both his shifting stylistic capabilities as well as his consistently provocative and trenchant thematic tendencies. While both these films deal with elements of sexual obsession, predation, and social hegemony, on the surface they are totally distinct, Empire being a gorgeous, classically styled ghost story and Violence at Noon being a fractured, modernist New Wave masterpiece."

"The Japanese New Wave is almost synonymous with Nagisa Oshima. His film In the Realm of the Senses outraged critics and audiences alike with its many scenes of unsimulated sex. Here he takes similar themes of lust and murderous passion and explores them through the supernatural, crafting a ghost story that puts Japanese society and cultural conventions on trial in a masterful way. Who are the criminals here? Those who dare to pursue their feelings and impulses, or the society that forbids them the freedom to do just that?"

"Crazy Love—A Double Bill Not for the Faint of Heart: On the face, Senso’s operatic melodrama and the pornographic explicitness of In the Realm of the Senses make for an odd coupling, but both serve up powerfully extreme and provocative portrayals of love run amok. Exquisitely photographed and scored, both are tales of unbridled passion and lust told against backdrops of political and social turmoil. Both end with women gone mad, consumed by obsessive love that destroys their men, who both die at their lovers’ hands. Luchino Visconti and Nagisa Oshima are filmmakers of deeply different sensibilities and concerns, of course, and the meaning and import of their stories are utterly divergent. Senso is an opulent, chilling tragedy of individuals bound in their lives and times. In the Realm of the Senses is transcendental; in death, love is forever."

"Crazy Love—A Double Bill Not for the Faint of Heart: On the face, Senso’s operatic melodrama and the pornographic explicitness of In the Realm of the Senses make for an odd coupling, but both serve up powerfully extreme and provocative portrayals of love run amok. Exquisitely photographed and scored, both are tales of unbridled passion and lust told against backdrops of political and social turmoil. Both end with women gone mad, consumed by obsessive love that destroys their men, who both die at their lovers’ hands. Luchino Visconti and Nagisa Oshima are filmmakers of deeply different sensibilities and concerns, of course, and the meaning and import of their stories are utterly divergent. Senso is an opulent, chilling tragedy of individuals bound in their lives and times. In the Realm of the Senses is transcendental; in death, love is forever."