Movies: Shōhei Imamura

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with th...

Filmmakers from all over the world provide short films – each of which is eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame of film in length – that offer differing perspectives on the 9/11 terrorist attacks....

At the time between the World Wars, Japan is involved in empire-building throughout East and Southeast Asia. After a brief career as a low-level military adventurer, Iheiji sets up chains of brothels throughout Asia. As Japan's power in the region gr...

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu is on the run from the police....

Tokyo engineer Kariya arrives on a primitive tropical island, where he interacts with the Futori clan, to drill a well to power a sugar mill....

A 28-year-old single woman is pressured to marry....

A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life....

The arranged marriage between a capricious woman from Tokyo high society and a quiet and rustic man is tested by a marital crisis....

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison....

In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mounta...

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh ex...

The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ei ja nai ka" ("Why not?") in Japan in 1867 and 1868 in the days leading to the Meiji Restoration. It examines the effects of the political and social upheaval of the time, and culminate...

A down-and-out businessman travels to a seaside town, where he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers....

Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old veteran of the New Guinea campaign in World War II, sets out to conduct interviews with survivors and relatives to find the truth behind atrocities committed while the Japanese garrison was surrounded, in particular the u...

At the end of WWII, Japanese doctor Akagi searches for the cure for hepatitis in the prisoner-of-war camp....

Subu makes pornographic films. He sees nothing wrong with it. They are an aid to a repressed society, and he uses the money to support his landlady, Haru, and her family. From time to time, Haru shares her bed with Subu, though she believes her dead ...

There are breakpoints in the history, the result of a single event may change the whole course. In 1909, an assassination attempt of a Japanese governor fails. Now, in 2009, Korea is just another state of Japan's Empire & Seoul has become a major cit...

Saheji, a man-about-town, gets stuck at a high-class brothel when he can’t pay the bill. He makes the best of his situation by performing various tasks amidst the tumult of the end of the shogunate—but always by making sure to get a “commission” for ...

Though his parents help him run the family business, Jun still feels persecuted by their love; when they bar him from meeting with his girlfriend, tensions increase....

In the city of Yokosuka, Kinta and his lover Haruko, both involved with yakuza, brave the post-occupation period with a goal to be together....