Vengeance Is Mine

The film gathers fearful force.

At once darkly comic and quasi-tragic, Imamura’s often brilliant tale of Eros and Thanatos is perverse, powerful and subversive.

Only Imamura could irreverently intertwine Catholicism, brutal murders, and pachinko to produce such devastating ends.

Mysterious, complex and brilliant: the disquieting portrait of a serial killer, seducer and con-man in Japan whose motivation remains an enigma. [9 Sept 2005, p.13]

Imamura’s detached, almost scientific style forestalls any pat sympathy for the central character—he is not a sentimental “victim of society,” but the embodiment of its darkest Darwinian forces.

Made in 1979, the film has aged superbly, the shock of its violence and acuity of its insights still retaining their punch. True, its lengthy running time is demanding and the momentum does dip in the second half, but it's held together by cool-headed technique and Ken Ogata's imposing lead performance.

Ogata's performance is the obvious highlight, and Imamura constructs an utterly plausible scenario, but at times overreaches, and loses focus. If you can tolerate a few extraneous scenes, though, this is a dark treat.