This essay appears in the “Women, Workers, & Whores on Film” zine, which accompanies the series of the same name at Anthology Film Archives programmed by Ayanna Dozier and co-presented by Screen Slate.
A New Love in Tokyo (1994), directed by Banmei Takahashi, follows two women—Rei (Sawa Suzuki), a professional dominatrix and aspiring actor, and Ayumi (Reiko Kataoka), a call girl—through their daily lives. Rei and Ayumi are both young and beautiful, and move through their worlds with the carefree ease that youth and beauty afford. Their friendship sparks when they realize the dungeon and escort service where they work share the same building.
The film offers an intimate, unfiltered look into their experiences as sex workers and young adults in Tokyo. Rather than spoon-feeding us the goings-on within spaces of sexual labor, Takahashi pulls up a chair and invites us to observe. In the dungeon, Rei pushes her clients to their limits, while Ayumi fields requests from wealthy middle-aged men in a hotel room. In between jobs, Rei rehearses lines for her theater company and Ayumi chats with her colleagues, offering us a look into the mundane aspects of the trade. Evenings are spent wildly drinking and dancing, exchanging goodbyes at sunrise.
Considering this film was made in 1994, A New Love in Tokyo is refreshingly free of moral panic and stigma around sex work, or sexuality in general. It is light hearted, even when touching on weighty subjects such as STIs. In one memorable scene, Rei announces to the theatre company—mostly men, most of whom she has had sex with—that she’s been diagnosed with a (curable) “VD” before skipping away untroubled and leaving them to figure out who patient zero is. Then, a hilarious scene ensues as they take a group trip to the STI clinic. A New Love in Tokyo’s humor comes through in its sharp timing and the irresistible charm of its protagonists.
Interwoven throughout are photographs of Rei taken by Nobuyoshi Araki, known for his images of women in bondage. When these stills appear, Araki’s gaze momentarily intrudes—asserting itself within a film otherwise defined by female and sexual autonomy. Fortunately, his presence remains contained within the photographs, leaving the rest of the film to unfold freely.
A New Love in Tokyo screens this afternoon, April 5, as well as April 7 and April 10, at Anthology Film Archives as part of the series “Women, Workers, and Whores on Film.” The film will be preceded by Lena Chen’s Chinese Touch.
