Isamu Ōsuka

A teenage girl gains supernatural power after an accident and comes to understand her place in the universe.

"Butoh: Body on the Edge of Crisis" is a visually striking film portrait shot on location in Japan with the participation of the major Butoh choreographers and their companies. Although Butoh is often viewed as Japan's equivalent of modern dance, in actuality it has little to do with the rational principles of modernism. Butoh is a theater of improvisation which places the personal experiences of the dancer on center-stage. By reestablishing the ancient Japanese connection of dance, music, and masks, and by recalling the Buddhist death dances of rural Japan, Butoh incorporates much traditional theater. At the same time, it is a movement of resistance against the abandonment of traditional culture to a highly organized consumer-oriented society.

The story tells of the adoration of Sasuke for his mistress, the blind samisen-teacher Shunkin, who treats him imperiously and subjects him to cruel beatings.

A visual documentary of Einstürzende Neubauten, the German underground band, by Japanese cult director Sogo Ishii, made during their 1985 tour of Japan. The band makes an elaborate and remarkably choreographed appearance in the ruins of an old ironworks which was scheduled for demolition; footage of same was incorporated into the movie and a brief appearance on stage.

In the slums of Osaka, various marginalized misfits have their own interpretations of love. Completely alienated from the outside world, they commit sexual perversions, violence and cannibalism.