Wow! Such a good movie.

One of my all time favorites.

Admirable film.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

A bondage, humiliation, S&M show, and not much else. The plot is flat, really just a banal setup for the stylishly depraved set-pieces. The host of the aforementioned show, a silly little man who spouts drivel while prancing around the stage in dresses, was almost as painfully distracting as the attempts at artful editing. The dream-like ending felt tacked on. To the film's credit though, Aya Sugimoto was fairly convincing as the tortured lead. Flower and Snake has been compared with Eyes Wide Shut but aside from some minor surface similarities, Kubrick's is easily the more layered, artistic, and atmospheric picture.

Takashi Ishii is my best movie 'find' of the last year (along with Park Chan Wook). When I finished watching BLACK ANGEL #1 I said to myself (silently since the film had left me utterly speechless) I have seen the face of grand opera for the 21st century. FLOWER & SNAKE takes its place on that same lofty summit. But whereas BLACK ANGEL fits neatly into the groove of Verdi and Wagner, FLOWER & SNAKE is more attuned to the hothouse orchid atmosphere of Strauss' SALOME, but dressed up (and down) in very contemporary style. I can imagine that Strauss would have loved for his SALOME to look like this! It is all about unrequited 'forbidden' love/lust. Westerners tend to be very uneasy with this area of human experience: witness S. Kubrick's last gasp of a dying breath EYES WIDE SHUT. Not so the Japanese. They grab Priapus by the horns and do their damnedest to wrestle him to the ground. More often than not leaving a trail of their own blood and guts strewn along the wayside. AND making ART of it all the while.While all S&M is ritualized to one degree or another, in a culture like Japan where RITUAL is fundamental to all cultural experience, the ritualization of the 'forbidden' is raised to the level of the sublime. This is most especially true in its artistic expressions. Erotic art is a very well established genre in Japan. And S&M erotic art is a very well established sub-genre there as well. One need not be an 'S&Mer' to appreciate it's artistic merits. But you can not deny it's artistic merits. I have seen rather a lot of (gay) Japanese erotic art on the web and a lot of it belonged to this sub-genre. If this is not Ishii's bag, then he did his homework very well. The traditional male loin cloth plays a very big role in Japanese homoerotic art, so I was rather surprised to see this fetish lavished so lovingly on the woman in the film. And the whole bondage business!!! The ritualistic binding with rope and knot tying is astonishing!!! And nearly verbatim from the many Japanese prints I have seen. (To see for your self google 'Gengoroh Tagame') This is erotic art of the highest order, albeit of a very specialized order. I can not recommend it too highly. On the other hand, if your sexual tastes are firmly entrenched in the vanilla flavors of Hollywood 'tweenky' sexploitation movies, then you might want to knock back a few before watching this. On the other hand if you enjoy sex while riding a roller coaster thru the funhouse and the chamber of horrors, you will die over this. It gives a whole new meaning to 'two thumbs up'!!!!

Incredibly hot Aya Sugimoto stars as Shizuko,a bored and unfulfilled wife of a wealthy businessman.When her husband is blackmailed by the Yakuza,Shizuko is sold to Oyabun Tashiro as payment.Tashiro quickly places Shizuko in a private S&M show for an elite audience in order to satisfy his own unfulfilled sexual needs.Shizuko is then subjected to sexual humiliation in front of the masked audience."Flower and Snake" is based on Oniroku Dan's highly successful novel.The film is perverse and sexually explicit,so fans of Japanese pinku eiga should get it as soon as possible.A famous Japanese singer and model Aya Sugimoto spends lots of her screen time naked and she has truly wonderful body.The story may be shocking for casual viewers,however if you are curious give this stunningly erotic masterpiece a look.9 out of 10.

Remind me of Nicholas Cage's 8mm about smurf films and Stanley Kubrik's wild and last Eyes Wide Shut(mind my spelling if some are wrong). Other than that, too complicated and obsessed for sex, nude, violence, to comprehend what it's trying to say, like many other Japanese flicks. Maybe it's not about understanding what the movie is trying to say, but just movie as it is. Well, at least the actress is pretty, seems a little old for all that bold numerous nude shots. I wonder how much she, the character, suffered 'and' enjoyed the whole ordeal. She DID enjoyed it, I think!!! I probably will not watch it again nor buy a DVD. But, it was good strange flick. I enjoy change of scenery time to time. Ciao^^