Odd Obsession delves into the tortured sexual relationship of a middle-aged Kyoto couple as it intersects with that of their daughter and her fiancé. Donald Ritchie (Japanese Cinema) calls Odd Obsession “a new interpretation of the love-death theme, in which some of the most sordid of human actions are captured by means of the sheerest physical beauty. Eroticism is omnipresent, though not in the scented variety.... Erotic obsession is presented with such a near-claustrophobic intensity that one longs for outdoor scenes, anything to get away from that dark and keyholed and magnificently photographed house. Yet this quality accounts for the power...: the spectator is made a participant. Although the principals know at least as much as the viewer...everything is hidden, secreted away. The films becomes remarkably suggestive, as one double meaning follows another....”