Overview: Adapting sci-fi author Yasutaka Tsutsui’s famous 1967 novel, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time cast Tomoyo Harada in her feature film debut, launching the Kadokawa pop idol into superstardom. After suffering a fainting spell in her school’s laboratory, 16-year-old Kazuko Yoshiyama (Harada) begins to experience a strange phenomenon throughout her daily life - temporal leaps backward and forward in time - disorienting her as she relives moments time and time again, as days past return to present.

Lost in a sea of time, Kazuko’s desperate plead to exist in the present are answered, amidst the swell of FX wizardry, musical overtures and, most of all, the anchor of young love. Lyrical, romantic and longing, Obayashi’s film is a genuine expression of the filmmaker’s reflections on the poetic transcendence of love - cast across the stars for a young girl who lives in tomorrow.

4K UHD Blu-ray Verdict: As usual with the great Tinto Brass, this is a very classy sex film, with Hollywood-class production values. Something that is, it should be said, a rare exception, not the rule, among other sex-film makers. Radley Metzger is the only other director I can think of offhand whose sex films invariably have great production values, but I digress.

Stefania Sandrelli is an absolutely stunning woman, with a gorgeously filled-out body, unlike the skinny-jinnies that many other directors are fond of. The film is set in Venice in 1940 and the locales are beautiful, while at the same time focusing on a native’s Venice, rather than the few over-photographed canals and churches one generally sees.

Now, in all truth, there are several reasons why the very mention of the director’s name will cause many to stop reading this review as his association with Caligula and Salon Kitty and, of course, his later joyfully, and uncompromisingly erotic later works, do not suggest this might be a serious filmmaker.

However, for me, the most difficult aspect was coming to terms with the fact that this has been transposed from the writer, Junichiro Tanizaki’s Japanese homeland to a wintry Venice. The whole notion of a couple each keeping a sexual diary (locked up but knowingly made available) as a way of communicating their hopes and desires is so not the way we consider Italians likely to behave.

But, never mind, for the film is great enough to overcome this and as much as I quickly found myself under the spell of the aforementioned, and prestigious actress, Stefania Sandrelli, and to a lesser manly extent by Frank Finlay’s simply terrific acting level of caliber, nothing distracted me from absorbing this movie with a smile on my face the whole time. And as much as I have mentioned that this is a fairly explicit film, one born from eroticism, of course, Brass does indulge himself with quite a few lingering shots of certain parts of Sandrelli’s anatomy, but I’m sure nobody would grudge him that; certainly not I.

Bonus Features:
4K Transfer & Restoration + HDR
Audio Commentary by Obayashi Scholar Alex Pratt
A Movie: Obayashi’s Cinematic Life - Visual essay by Max Robinson
Now and Then, Here and There: Onomichi Pt. 2 - Visual essay by Alex Pratt
A Conversation with Nobuhiko Obayashi (2015) Japan Society NY
Director Nobuhiko Obayashi Archival Interview
The Tomoyo Harada Story
Toki O Kakeru Shojo music video
Theatrical Trailers
New improved English subtitles
New Slipcase art design by Sam Smith
Reversible sleeve with original Japanese poster art
First Pressing includes repro 24-page Japanese booklet

Official The Key (1083) Movie Trailer

Official Purchase Link