# Empire of Passion (愛の亡霊)
**Empire of Passion** (愛の亡霊, *Ai no bōrei*; French title *L'Empire de la passion*) is a 1978 drama-horror film directed by Nagisa Ōshima, a Japan–France co-production that follows a married woman and her younger lover who murder her husband and dump his body in a well, only to be haunted by his ghost as village gossip intensifies.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) • [2](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/empire-of-passion) It was Ōshima's only true *kaidan*, or Japanese ghost story, and it won him the Best Director Award at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director and screenplay | Nagisa Ōshima, based on a book by Itoko Nakamura[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) |
| Production | Japan–France co-production; producer Anatole Dauman (Argos Films, Oshima Productions)[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) • [3](https://www.kinoafisha.info/en/movies/5599631/) |
| Principal cast | Tatsuya Fuji (Toyoji), Kazuko Yoshiyuki (Seki), Takahiro Tamura (Gisaburo)[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Yoshio Miyajima; music Toru Takemitsu; production design Jusho Toda[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) |
| Setting | A Japanese village near Tokyo in 1895, in the Meiji era[4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html) |
| Runtime and format | 105 minutes, color, 1.66:1 (some sources list 108 minutes)[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) • [4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html) |
| Honors | Best Director, 1978 Cannes Film Festival; Best Film Score at the 1979 Japan Academy Film Prize and Mainichi Film Awards[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) • [5](https://www.cinematheque.qc.ca/en/cinema/empire-of-passion/) |
## Spoilers
### Story and setting
The film is set in 1895, in the [Meiji era](https://www.edgepedia.org/meiji-era), in a village close to Tokyo.[4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html) Gisaburo is an old rickshaw driver worn out by work; every night his still young-looking wife Seki bathes him, massages him, and gives him sake to dull his exhaustion and poverty.[4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html) Toyoji, a young man who has completed his military service, returns to the village and, after insistent courtship, becomes Seki's lover.[4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html)
**The murder and the ghost.** The lovers strangle Gisaburo while he is drunk and throw his body into a disused well in the forest.[4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html) Under pressure from the villagers they cannot live their passion openly, the ghost of Gisaburo appears to them, and rumors begin to spread.[4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html) The Quebec film classification synopsis records the ending: under torture the lovers confess their crime and are executed.[6](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/lempire-de-la-passion-17856/)
## Origins and production
Ōshima wrote the screenplay from a book by Itoko Nakamura.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) Tony Rayns writes that Ōshima was drafting a screenplay about a sexual killer called the Bear Ogre, a criminal whose deeds dominated Japanese tabloid coverage in 1926, until he came across the tale of Gisaburo, a rickshaw man, and his spouse Seki, told in a life of the Meiji-era writer Nagatsuka Takashi.[7](https://criterion-v2.herokuapp.com/current/posts/1106-empire-of-passion-love-s-phantom)
The film was produced by Anatole Dauman, whose company Argos Films had financed work by leading European art-house directors and who, in the early 1970s, had become interested in producing artistically credible erotic films after the liberalization of censorship in France and the United States.[7](https://criterion-v2.herokuapp.com/current/posts/1106-empire-of-passion-love-s-phantom) The Japanese studio Ōshima Productions dates the film to 1978, when Ōshima was 46, with editing by Keiichi Uraoka alongside the credited crew.[8](https://oshima-pro.jp/works_j.html)
## Relation to In the Realm of the Senses
Empire of Passion followed Ōshima's controversial *In the Realm of the Senses* (1976), and the two films are often compared because both center on uneducated, working-class couples who find in adulterous sex a liberation from what stunts their lives, and both are based on real-life events.[7](https://criterion-v2.herokuapp.com/current/posts/1106-empire-of-passion-love-s-phantom) Rayns describes the new film as in many ways the converse of its predecessor, a grid of oppositions: urban against rural, shameless against guilt-stricken, artifice against nature, exposure against concealment, and a male narrator against a female one.[7](https://criterion-v2.herokuapp.com/current/posts/1106-empire-of-passion-love-s-phantom) The Vesoul festival program likewise calls it a story of "love and blood" quite different from the earlier film.[4](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html)
The visual idiom evokes the horror-movie tradition, with swirling mists and chiaroscuro lighting, but Rayns argues this serves to emphasize how far the film stands from generic roots; Ōshima avoided a fixed personal style, finding a structure, visual form, and tone appropriate to each project.[7](https://criterion-v2.herokuapp.com/current/posts/1106-empire-of-passion-love-s-phantom) The Metrograph program notes a debt to James M. Cain's hard-boiled classic *The Postman Always Rings Twice* and describes the film as mixing the pleasures of the flesh with the supernatural.[9](https://metrograph.com/film/?vista_film_id=9999002301)
## Reception and awards
At the 31st Cannes Film Festival in 1978 the film won the Best Director Award for Ōshima.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288) • [10](https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/seisaku/03/17/pdf/17_bunkaseisakubukai_1_4_1.pdf) It premiered at Cannes on May 19, 1978, and opened in the United States on March 26, 1979.[11](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077132/releaseinfo/) In Japan it placed third in the Japanese film category of the 52nd Kinema Junpo Best Ten and took the Japanese Film Excellence Award and Music Award at the 33rd Mainichi Film Competition.[8](https://oshima-pro.jp/works_j.html) Toru Takemitsu's score also won Best Film Score at the 1979 Japan Academy Film Prize and the Mainichi Film Awards.[5](https://www.cinematheque.qc.ca/en/cinema/empire-of-passion/) Ōshima's own production company records that even the previously critical reviewer was praised for the director's maturity; the NFAJ notes that the critic had long been skeptical of Ōshima's work.[12](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/oshima202303-30/)
Censorship classifications have shifted over time: Quebec classified the film "18 years and over" in 1979, citing nudity, eroticism, paranormal phenomena, and a form of torture, and reclassified it "13 years and over" in 2004 for a new commercial release.[6](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/lempire-de-la-passion-17856/) [The Criterion Collection](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-criterion-collection) issued the film on home video as Spine #467 with a restored high-definition transfer, a video essay by the film historian Catherine Russell, and interviews with actors Kazuo Yoshiyuki and Tatsuya Fuji.[1](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288)
## References
1. [Empire of Passion (1978), The Criterion Collection](https://www.criterion.com/films/1288)
2. [Empire of Passion streaming, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/empire-of-passion)
3. [Empire of Passion 1978, Kinoafisha](https://www.kinoafisha.info/en/movies/5599631/)
4. [Empire of passion, Festival des Cinémas d'Asie de Vesoul](https://archives.cinemas-asie.com/en/movies/item/3717-empire-of-passion.html)
5. [Empire of Passion, Cinémathèque québécoise](https://www.cinematheque.qc.ca/en/cinema/empire-of-passion/)
6. [L'empire de la passion, Répertoire des films classés, Québec](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/lempire-de-la-passion-17856/)
7. [Empire of Passion: Love's Phantom, by Tony Rayns, Criterion Current](https://criterion-v2.herokuapp.com/current/posts/1106-empire-of-passion-love-s-phantom)
8. [大島渚 全作品：愛の亡霊, Oshima Productions](https://oshima-pro.jp/works_j.html)
9. [Empire of Passion, Metrograph](https://metrograph.com/film/?vista_film_id=9999002301)
10. [三大映画祭とアカデミー賞での邦画の受賞作品一覧, 文化庁](https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/seisaku/03/17/pdf/17_bunkaseisakubukai_1_4_1.pdf)
11. [Empire of Passion (1978) Release info, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077132/releaseinfo/)
12. [没後10年 映画監督 大島渚, National Film Archive of Japan](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/oshima202303-30/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Erotic thrillers and dramas*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license