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BALLAD OF NARAYAMA (IMAMURA)
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Winner of the Grand Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, The Ballad of Narayama is based on one of the most astonishing of all Japanese legends. A century ago in a remote mountain village, local custom dictated that when a person reached 70 years of age, he or she was taken to Mount Narayama to die.  This brilliant film from director Imamura delivers a vigorous and beautiful affirmation of family, life, and death. "The ritual sex and violence, and the  long final sequence when a dutiful son carries his old mother up the mountain slopes, cannot fail to impress and shock" (Faber Companion to Foreign Films). In Japanese with English subtitles. "A masterpiece of Japanese Cinema to stand beside Ugetsu, Tokyo Story, or The Seven Samurai"  (Michael Wilmington, LA Weekly).                                           Shohei Imamura---Japan---1983---130 mins.
BLACK RAIN (IMAMURA)
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A somber, moving story detailing ten years in the life of a family which survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
EEL (IMAMURA)
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Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, this masterpiece      from Shohei Imamura is a bold, frequently offbeat exploration of crime and       punishment, guilt and redemption, and the elusive possibility of salvation       through love. Koji Yakusho stars as an ex-con, paroled after eight years in    prison for killing his adulterous wife. Isolated from those around him, his    only bond is with the eel he adopted as a pet while behind bars. A new woman   in his life presents a chance for renewal, but the past won't leave the couple   alone. "...there is an invisible mastery in The Eel, a technique beyond  technique" (Dave Kehr, Film Comment). In Japanese with English           Shohei Imamura---Japan---1997---117 mins.
EIJANAIKA
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Called an "historical documentary", Eijanaika is "a sprawling,             superb-looking period piece charged with Imamura's characteristically fevered    eroticism and underplayed black humor. As spectacle, it's stunning in its        dynamism and the last half-hour presents one of the most libidinal depictions  of a mass uprising since Eisenstein restaged the storming of the Winter        Palace. As in Vengeance Is Mine, Imamura imbues the cruelty with         virtuoso ferocity and an appalling, visionary beauty" (J. Hoberman, Villag  e Voice). In Japanese with English subtitles.                                 Shohei Imamura---Japan---1981---151 mins.
PIGS, PIMPS & PROSTITUTES
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A collection of early '60s films from Shohei Imamura, "Japan's incarnation of Bunuel, omnisciently satiric and utterly cynical" (Michael Atkinson, The Boston Phoenix). The satirical drama Pigs and Battleships (Buta t  o Gunkan, 1961, 108 mins.) depicts lower class life around the American naval base at Yokosuka. With no prospects, young Hiroyuki Nagato becomes a pimp in training under the local yakuza, and happily feeds slop from the base to his boss' pigs. His girlfriend (Jitsuko Yoshimura) implores him to go straight,  but he's too far gone down the wrong path. Taken one step further, The Insect Woman (Nippon konchuki, 1963, 123 mins.) is a dark and often humorous story of sexual exploitation. One of Japan's finest actresses, Sachiko Hidari, plays an impoverished country girl who escapes a brutal existence, which includes rape and incest, by fleeing to Tokyo. She proves to  be an amoral survivor who fights her way to success as a madam. Similarly, the stylized drama Intentions of Murder (Akai Satsui, 1964, 150 mins.) concerns another heroine of ill-repute. Sadako (Masumi Harukawa), a dome  stic   slave, is raped while her husband is away. Instead of reporting the crime, the incident awakens a dual desire to murder and run away with her attacker. In    Shohei Imamura---Japan---1961-1964---462 mins.
PORNOGRAPHERS, THE (IMAMURA)
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A bizarre story and a technical tour-de-force, Imamura's Pornographer follows an Osaka man who makes porno films out of a sense of duty to his fellow man.
PROFOUND DESIRES OF THE GODS
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"Sex, God and Greed play their parts in one of Imamura's most ambitious and powerful films, a rich earthy fable set on a Pacific island where ancient beliefs come head-to-head with 20th century capitalism. The company engineer sent from Tokyo to build and airport exhorts the peasants to 'Forget the Gods!', but goes native himself when he's seduced by a half-witted harpy. It all ends badly" (Tom Charity, Time Out Film Guide). Winner of Kinema Junpo Awards for Best Director and Film. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Shohei Imamura---Japan---1968---173 mins.
VENGEANCE IS MINE (CRITERION)
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One of the most strikingly original films of the modern cinema, Vengeance     Is Mine is an "eclectically horrifying portrait of a psychopathic criminal    named Iwao Enokizu...[the film] makes every other film on the In Cold         Blood theme look like child's play," wrote Tom Allen in The Village      Voice. Enokizu (Ken Ogata) becomes a suspect in the murder of two men who   work for the government tobacco monopoly. A nationwide dragnet is set up to    capture him, but for 78 days he travels throughout Japan committing fraud,       cheating women, and taking lives. In Japanese with English subtitles.          Shohei Imamura---Japan---1979---140 mins.
WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE
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Directed by Japanese auteur Shohei Imamura (The Ballad of Narayama, The       Eel), this charmingly bizarre slice of magic realism is an engaging           variation on the male mid-life crisis movie. Unemployed, middle-aged Yosuke      (Koji Yakusho) travels to a small town where he encounters the senile          fortune-teller Mitzu (Mitsuko Baisho) and her beautiful grand daughter Saeko   (Misa Shimizu). Mitzu is a young woman whose body secretes gallons of water    when she makes love, a discharge that irrigates her garden and replenishes the   local river. She and Yosuke begin a passionate affair. Rumors abound, however  as to the fate of her last lover, who drowned under mysterious circumstances.  "An endearing portrait of provincial eccentricity, and a generous tribute to   female fecundity" (DVD Asian.com). In Japanese with English subtitles.     Shohei Imamura---Japan/France---2001---119 mins.