Mandala (1971)

This 1970’s cinematic example of Japanese New Wave (also called Mandara) starts off with Shinichi (Kôji Shimizu) and Hiroshi (Ryô Tamura), two students attending university in Kyoto who’ve whisked their girlfriends away to a beachside hotel. They decide to swap partners much to the chagrin of Hiroshi’s lady, Yasuko (Hiroko Sakurai), and the contrasting excitement of Shinichi’s partner Yukiko (Akiko Mori). However, the couples don't realize they are secretly being watched by overzealous Buddhist Maki (Shin Kishida), the leader of a cult dedicated to two things: agriculture and sexual liberation. Supposedly since the latter takes more convincing, he spies on the sexual habits of people to see if they would make good candidates for membership, and then sends his followers to subdue the ones that interest him. Yukiko and Shinichi turn out to be totally into it, until Maki’s controlling ways spur Shinichi to take down the sect by going after Maki’s wife, who’s worshipped as a goddess of the sect. As one can imagine from the plot, there’s all kinds of nudity from the two main starlets and some interesting naked writhing from Mihiro Wakabayashi as Maki’s wife. The story is pretty intense but if you enjoy the breaking of cultural taboos, than this is the foreign skinema classic for you!