Fruits of Passion (1981): Terayama, Kinski, and the Story of O Sequel

Fruits of Passion (French: Les fruits de la passion; Japanese: Shanghai Ijin Shōkan – China Doll, 上海異人娼館／チャイナ・ドール) is a 1981 French–Japanese co-production directed by Shūji Terayama and starring Klaus Kinski. It is loosely based on Retour à Roissy by Anne Desclos, better known under the name Pauline Réage and for Story of O. The novel is the literary sequel that sends O back into Sir Stephen’s control. For BDSM film history it is a strange international attempt to put the O story on screen. The setting moves from the French chateau of the books to southern China, with a casino, a colonial frame, and brothel “training,” and with Kinski as the sadistic master.

In the film Sir Stephen places O in a Chinese brothel in southern China for “training.” She goes through a string of humiliating trials meant to prove unconditional obedience. That is the erotic-slavery premise of Story of O, restaged as exoticized period erotica. A subplot follows local resentment of Europeans, and a young man desperate to afford O’s favors at the brothel. The political unease is braided into the sexual commerce of the house.

Isabelle Illiers plays O. Klaus Kinski plays Sir Stephen. Arielle Dombasle plays Nathalie. Peter plays Madame. Keiko Niitaka plays Aisen. Sayoko Yamaguchi plays Sakuya. Hitomi Takahashi plays Byakuran. Miyuki Ono plays Kasen. Yuka Kamebuchi is also in the cast. Kenichi Nakamura plays the young man, Ogaku. Akiro Suetsugu plays Obana. Renji Ishibashi plays Kato. Takeshi Wakamatsu plays the house guardian. Georges Wilson is the narrator.

The production stayed contested. In a 2017 interview with the French magazine VSD, Arielle Dombasle looked back with regret. The experience hurt her terribly. She said she was too young to do that. Of Kinski she said he was crazy: a man who crushes the weak, the ugliest thing in the world, someone who loved power, who absolutely wanted to be loved, and who did everything to make sure they did not love him. In his autobiography Kinski claimed that every sex scene he took part in for the film was unsimulated. True or performed, that claim keeps the production in the same disputed zone as other early-1980s art erotica, where hardcore footage and a prestige cast were mixed.

France released the film on June 3, 1981, as Les fruits de la passion. Japan released it in November 1981 as Shanghai Ijin Shōkan – China Doll, with pubic areas censored. The U.S. release, titled Fruits of Passion and dubbed into English, came in November 1982. A Japanese-language version with English subtitles appeared on VHS and DVD on June 20, 2000, as Fruits of Passion – The Story of “O” Continued. A digitally remastered Japanese release in December 2005 included Japanese, English, and French versions, with Japanese subtitles.

Reviews were mixed. Roberta Novielli called it shallow and decadent. Jasper Sharp labeled it minor Terayama, charming mainly in the surface: costumes, sets, cinematography. Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser gave it three stars out of four, and credited the look more than the narrative or the coherence. For kink viewers looking for O adaptations, it is not a definitive screen version of Story of O. It is a Terayama–Kinski curiosity: brothel obedience theater, sequel-novel DNA, and a colonial Shanghai fantasy, wrapped around the unconditional-submission premise that made Pauline Réage’s book a BDSM literary landmark.