one of my absolute favorites!

Excellent, smart action film.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Flower and Snake is a novel that Dan Onuroku wrote in his 30s, so there's quite a bit of history to it. Dan started writing novels to pay back the debt the Shogi (Japanese chess) magazine had where he was the editor. But his style was very much ahead of time, and he became the preeminent S&M writer of his days.This is the 3rd installment of the Flower and Snake series that started with Aya Sugimoto's version in 2004. Minako Komukai replaced Sugimoto in this version. Dan himself recommended S&M movies as a career path to Komukai.This is based on a novel that were written in the '60s, and it's somewhat tame by today's standard. I think Yusuke Narita has better visuals than Takashi Ishii who directed the previous two versions, but the story just meanders and lacks delivery. This was very much Dan's own early writing style as well, so I'm not sure who gets the blame.In any case, Komukai does a very good job as Sugimoto's replacement, and this is one of the last movie that Dan himself was involved in the making, so if you've been following Oniroku Dan's movies, this is one that you wouldn't want to miss.

Minako Komukai takes over the franchise from sexy Aya Sugimoto. Minako does not have Aya's acting talents, nor does she burn up the screen with sheer projection of passion. But Minako's got a voluptuous body and she's willing to use it. That pretty sums up what you're going to see if you watch this film.I don't speak or read Japanese. The plot was supposed to revolve around a kidnapped wife, a ransom note, and training her to become a masochistic porn actress/sex slave. I didn't see any negotiations. Just seemed to be concentrating on breaking the will of Shizuko (Komukai) through repeated bondage sequences, forcing her to watch the maids/butlers have sex, and being tied to a post and ravaged by her house mates. By the end of it Shizuko becomes addicted to using her body as an instrument of pleasure for her master's use (and her own enjoyment). This is actually a very typical Pink movie plot line.The hottest scene is probably the lesbian one-on-one with Shizuko blindfolded and bound. She's released from her binds later on but she refuses to leave because shes so into it. Others include the final scene where her master comes to claim his love slave and the scene with the butlers/maids going at it. For those of you with sharp eyes, Kei Mizutani plays one of the maids.Komukai plays all the difficult scenes very well. She really does look scared (or was it not 'acting' scared?) And she really does look to be in the throes of passion when she's being ravaged and pleasured. Those DD's really do get a work out. She's not as sexy as Aya, but she's definitely got the bigger rack. So take your pick.8/10

A businessman is ruthless with his competitors, and in response his competitors after being driven out of business kidnap aforementioned business man's wife and start training her to be a porn star, particularly of the S&M/bondage variety, in order to blackmail the business man into paying them not to release the porn film that they're creating...starring his wife. (Yeah, the plot doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but it doesn't really need to, I guess.) There's not really much to say about this movie. If you're interested in softcore pinky bondage films like the previous Flower & Snake movies, Wife to be Sacrificied, etc. then I'd check it out. There's some debauchery/humiliation and what have you (someone urinates in someone else's face, sexual intercourse with a meat product of some kind, some girl-on-girl) but all in all it's just skullnumbingly boring. But, y'know, like I said, if you like the older Japanese bondage productions, then your mileage may vary (despite being released in 2010, the production has an intentionally created older look to it). I just went into it with a (probably misguided) expectation for Japanese exploitation OTT madness, and in that sense was disappointed.