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Erotica/Mature Themes

Akai Tenshi (1966)
While most Japanese movie fans may be familiar with director Masumura Yasuzo's eerie "Moju" (AKA Blind Beast; 1969), "Akai Tenshi" (Eng. Lit. - Red Angel) is one of the director's more somber films. Set against the backdrop of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937) Masumura focuses on the life of a newly transferred Japanese Army medical nurse Nishi Sakura (Wakao Ayako) and the horrors she sees and experiences as she tries to cope with the human casualties of that senseless war. In the course of her duties Sakura befriends the stoic doctor/surgeon Dr. Okabe (Ashida Shinsuke) who is a Chief Medical Officer for the Army. Although much older than she, Sakura finds herself hopelessly in love with the doctor whom strangely reminds her of her own father who had passed away when she was a child. To escape the realities of the war, Okabe has become addicted to morphine, which he has Sakura administer. Eventually Sakura helps Okabe break this addiction and soon becomes his lover. The two lovers are soon transferred to the frontline where they have to tend to a group of cholera-infected soldiers. Can their love survive the slowly escalating conflicts surrounding them? While the film touches upon a number of exploitative elements, it is surprisingly very conservative in its handling and depictions of the more salacious aspects (there is very little nudity and the sex scenes are done tastefully and without the usual gratuitousness expected from these films). The film definitely does not condone the acts of the Japanese Military of the time and goes out of its way to show the human casualties of the conflict, often in very graphic detail. War is hell and this film hammers that point across in its depictions of the war wounded and the psychological trauma these soldiers suffer.
Parasite Dolls (movie version) (2004)
The year is 2034, and AI androids called Boomers are commonplace in the city of MegaTokyo. A movie version of a side story to the OVA series, AD Police (which itself is a side story to the BubbleGum Crisis series), which focuses on a secret branch of the AD Police. Expands upon the series universe as a whole, giving it a much more fleshed out feel in a Blade Runner-esque world. Several short stories combined into one. Helmed by famous names in anime. Cyberpunk themes.
Rokugatsu No Hebi (2002)
A woman working a phone counselling center is being stalked by a former caller who says he is trying to repay her for the good deed she did in saving his life. Though his method is questionable... blackmail. Directed by cult director Shinya Tsukamoto. Shot in black and white. Surreal.