: Reviewers from IMDb note the heavy use of "optical fogging" and camera effects to partially obscure body parts, a technique that can be visually distracting and "headache-inducing".
: The film intentionally obscures the line between Chieko’s drug-induced daydreams and the "real" events occurring in the surgery. Hakujitsumu (1981)
The film’s central premise is deceptively simple: a young woman named Chieko and a man named Kurahashi wait in a dentist's office. Once Chieko is administered nitrous oxide for her procedure, the narrative fractures into a series of darkly erotic hallucinations. In these visions, she is molested and terrorized by her dentist, an ordeal that spills over into external locations like neon-lit nightclubs and private chambers. Key elements of its surrealist approach include: : Reviewers from IMDb note the heavy use
While the 1964 original was lauded for its artistic restraint and visual composition, the 1981 remake is often viewed as a more polarized product of its era's relaxed censorship. Once Chieko is administered nitrous oxide for her
The film’s focus on obsession, power dynamics, and the "aesthetics of shadows" is deeply rooted in the literary style of . Tanizaki’s work often features characters who find intense sensation in "strangeness" and "eccentric behavior," themes that Takechi translates into the film’s sado-masochistic sequences and clinical voyeurism.
: The dental surgeon functions as a central figure of clinical sadism, embodying a blend of professional authority and sexual predatory behavior.