“If a dominatrix is one who takes total control of her passive partner, then R100 is the cinematic equivalent of a kinky femme fatale in black leather and stiletto heels, cracking a whip and a smile. At least for the film’s first half, Japanese writer-director Hitoshi Matsumoto gets a kick out of tantalizing and torturing the viewer with his tale of a meek department store salesman whose bondage-club contract for a year’s worth of sexual masochism proves unbreakable — and painful to boot. Albeit more wacky than provocative in the end, R100 could become a cult fetish on VOD.” — from Rob Nelson‘s 2.3.14 Sundance review in Variety.

Did I just read the word “unbreakable”? Are you thinking what I’m thinking? S & M enthusiast Angelina Jolie needs to direct the English-language remake…please. It has her name on it.

If a dominatrix is one who takes total control of her passive partner, then “R100” is the cinematic equivalent of a kinky femme fatale in black leather and stiletto heels, cracking a whip and a smile. At least for the film’s first half, Japanese writer-director Hitoshi Matsumoto gets a kick out of tantalizing and torturing the viewer with his tale of a meek department store salesman whose bondage-club contract for a year’s worth of sexual masochism proves unbreakable — and painful to boot. Albeit more wacky than provocative in the end, R100 could become a cult fetish on VOD.

Matsumoto’s gigantically funny “Big Man Japan” (2007) hardly prepares one for his stylistic sadism here. So bleached of color that it’s nearly black-and-white, “R100” begins in full-on noir mode, with Takafumi Katayama (Nao Ohmori) taking a beating from a cig-smoking, trenchcoat-clad bondage queen, his bruised body tumbling down a flight of stairs in a scene that playfully recalls the S&M-inflected classic “Kiss Me Deadly.” The gag’s visual punchline is a series of cheesy CGI ripples emanating from the head of the victim, signifying his dumbfounded ecstasy.