A "director's cut" of sorts, attempting to recreate the film as originally made, was released as a 75-minute feature in 1996, thirteen years after Terayama's death.

[3] Set in an indeterminate future in which children have overthrown adults and established their own empire, the film does not have a central narrative or identifiable character roles.

The titular boy emperor lazily lords over his parents and shows disinterest in the young girl who is his designated concubine.

[4] The film includes scenes of animal abuse, drag play, fascism, Nazism, racism, rape, the Ku Klux Klan, nudity, and sexual fetishism as well as pantomimed erotic acts involving both children and adults.

[5] Rex Reed described the film as an "avant-garde porno flick" and "the most disgusting thing [he]'d ever seen", writing in The New York Daily News that it caused a "scandal" in Paris, where he saw it.