Wife to be Sacrificed (生贄夫人, Ikenie Fujin) (1974) is a Japanese soft-core pornographic S&M film starring Naomi Tani and directed by Masaru Konuma.
Because Oniroku Dan had objected to Konuma's handling of Flower and Snake, he was not involved in the making of Wife to be Sacrificed, though he later gave Nikkatsu exclusive rights to the filming of his novels.
[6] The resulting film, together with the earlier Flower and Snake (also directed by Konuma in 1974, and starring the same female and male leads) is credited with starting the S&M Roman Porno series which helped save Nikkatsu from financial collapse during the 1970s.
[9] Akiko (Naomi Tani) is startled to find her estranged husband, Kunisada (Nagatoshi Sakamoto), in a car watching a young, pre-pubescent girl urinate by the side of a road.
Kunisada finds her unconscious in the woods, cleans her and dresses her in her traditional Japanese wedding clothes, complete with make-up, and suspends her from pulleys in the cabin and shaves her pubic hair.
While fishing, Kunisada comes across an unconscious young couple—Kaoru (Terumi Azuma) and Kiyoshi (Hidetoshi Kageyama)—that had failed in committing double suicide.
She pushes him even further with commands to, "Whip me harder... abuse me..." After one such session in the woods, Akiko and Kunisada return to the cabin where they find that the young couple has bound themselves together and committed double-suicide through strangulation.
As the end credits roll, Kunisada is walking through the countryside holding Miko's hand, and Akiko is still in the cabin, tied up naked and squirming.
"[14] The Scarecrow Video movie guide says, "this is a shockingly graceful film, beautifully shot and lovingly realized by Konuma, lending a dream-like quality to the whole thing.
Early in the film, Kunisada refuses to let Akiko relieve herself for a long period of time, and then forces her to defecate with the door open and him watching.
"[16] In 1998, in an effort to introduce the Japanese-film fans of America to one of the most popular Japanese film genres (i.e., the pinku eiga),[18] Phaedra Cinema released Wife to be Sacrificed theatrically in the U.S. on a double-bill with Noburu Tanaka's A Woman Called Sada Abe (1975).
This DVD presented the film in the original Japanese language with non-removable English subtitles and in a non-anamorphic widescreen format.
The major special feature of this disc is director Hideo Nakata's 2001 documentary on Konuma entitled Sadistic and Masochistic.
When the outhouse sequence of the film comes up during the conversation, Konuma looks at his dish and comments, to the amusement of both Tani and Nakata, "I really shouldn't have ordered curry.