Based on the true story of Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) and his murderous rampage which sparked a 78-day nationwide manhunt, Shohei Imamura's disturbing gem Vengeance is Mine won every major award in Japan on the year of its release. Both seducing and repelling with its unusual story and grisly humour, Imamura uncovers a seedy underbelly of civilised Japanese society.Unfolding through multiple flashbacks, Ogata delivers a career-defining performance as a day-labourer and smalltime con-artist who, after killing two of his co-workers, embarks on a psychopathic spree of rape and murder. Eluding the police and public, Japan's infamous "King of Criminals" passes himself off as a Kyoto University professor, only to become entangled with an innkeeper and her perverted mother. Five years in the making, Vengeance is Mine transcends the limitations of run-of-the-mill criminal studies by presenting a portrait of a killer imbued with a poignant, tragic banality.
Shohei Imamura established his own independent production company, Imamura Productions, to allow himself more freedom away from the major studios, to choose riskier subject matter, and explore greater stylistic experimentation without compromise. He started his career in film as an assistant to Yasujiro Ozu before earning a reputation as a key member of the Japanese New Wave with Pigs and Battleships (1961) and The Insect Woman (1963). In 1975, Imamura founded the Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film which counts Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer) among its many graduates.
Filmed in 1979, and long overdue a release of any kind in the UK, Vengeance is Mine is one of the most critically acclaimed and influential Japanese films of the last thirty years.
See also:
The Masters Of Cinema Collection
