1971 film directed by Masao Adachi, Kōji Wakamatsu

A shiftless resident in a boarding house spends his days crawling in the attic and spying on the renters below. One day he spies an elegant lady enter a room where a clown awaited her and watched as he pleasured her. But she spotted him watching and it aroused her more. Thus begins a story of two people who find they share similar desires and deadly passions.

A decadent count in 1920′s Japan becomes obsessed with the life and works of the Marquis de Sade. He creates a theatre to show plays adapted from the notorious writer’s novels and recruits thieves, prostitutes and low lives to act out his fantasies on stage for the delectation of his rich, jaded friends. In search of new sensations the nobleman orders one of the actors, on pain of death, to make love to the nobleman’s wife while he watches. Unfortunately, this incursion of real life into his fantasy world will have dire consequences for the count and his divinely decadent coterie.

A footballing law student tutors an undergraduate, developing into a romance that soon enough goes awry.