A Woman Called Sada Abe 1975

The film opens with Abe Sada speaking from a black screen, listing a string of aliases from her past as the darkness lingers. The moment shifts to the title “Kichi Sada 2” and a newspaper headline proclaiming “Document: Sada Abe,” grounding the tale in a notorious real-life case. The scene then introduces the lovers, Sada and Kichi, who drift through a world on the brink of war, with Kichi quietly predicting that their love might cost him his life if they keep going.

The pair are soon seen entering an inn, their affair unfolding against Japan’s tense military atmosphere. Their time together stretches from April 23 to May 7, 1936, and their private rituals grow increasingly intense, incorporating elements of S&M—knives, biting, and mutual strangulation—into the rhythm of their days. When Kichi leaves to get a shave, Sada’s jealousy flares, and she accuses him of adultery with his wife, straining the bonds that connect them even further.

As the nation’s nerves are tuned to the radio reports of the February 26 Incident, Sada and Kichi remain detached from the public tremor around them, insisting on continuing their intimate sequence. After a brutal moment where they strangle each other with their obi sashes, Kichi’s neck bears the signs of strain. A doctor is summoned, and Kichi is ordered to a liquid diet as he plans to return home for recovery. Sada’s loneliness grows with his absence, and she disrupts his medication in a moment of desperation. In a later session, Kichi begs Sada to finish what they start and not stop halfway again, promising that the pain will be unbearable if she does. The climax arrives when Sada, after killing him, rubs her breasts against his face, attempts to offer beer, and ultimately castrates him. She then wounds herself and writes “Kichi Sada 2” in blood across his body, a grotesque mark of their shared obsession.

Flashbacks begin to trace Sada’s path before meeting Kichi: a life of privilege that is upturned when she loses her virginity to rape, leading to banishment from her wealthy family. She drifts across Japan, working as a prostitute and a barmaid, and eventually finds employment at the inn where she first encountered Kichi, a sequence that suggests how deeply her past pains have shaped her present choices.

In the film’s final act, the crime’s discovery sends Sada into the glare of national attention, transforming her into a sensational figure. A curious, unnamed masseur who does not know her true identity becomes a confidant as she reflects that Sada must have loved Kichi deeply to want the whole country to know their story. The closing moments circle back to the arrest that ends the affair, leaving a country and a woman in the glare of a stark, unflinching truth.