Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
In 1983 Ōshima had a critical success with a film made partly in English, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", set in a wartime Japanese prison camp, and featuring rock star David Bowie and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, alongside Takeshi Kitano. The movie is sometimes viewed as a minor classic but never found a mainstream audience. "Max, Mon Amour" (1986), written with Luis Buñuel's frequent collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, was a comedy about a diplomat's wife (Charlotte Rampling) whose love affair with a chimpanzee is quietly incorporated into an eminently civilised "ménage à trois".