Unagi (1997)

Director:

Shohei Imamura

Writers:

Shohei Imamura (writer)
Daisuke Tengan (writer)

Release Date:

21 August 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

White-collar worker Yamashita finds out that his wife has a lover visiting her when he's away, suddenly returns home and kills her...

Plot Keywords:

Barber Shop | Sex Scene | Barber | Blood | Eel

Awards:

14 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

Kôji Yakusho	...	Takuro Yamashita
Misa Shimizu	...	Keiko Hattori
Mitsuko Baisho	...	Misako Nakajima
Akira Emoto	...	Tamotsu Takasaki
Fujio Tsuneta	...	Jiro Nakajima
Sho Aikawa	...	Yuji Nozawa
Ken Kobayashi	...	Masaki Saito
Sabu Kawahara	...	Seitaro Misato
Etsuko Ichihara	...	Fumie Hattori
Tomorowo Taguchi	...	Eiji Dojima
Chiho Terada	...	Emiko Yamashita
Shinshô Nakamaru
Sei Hiraizumi
Seiji Kurasaki
Toshirô Ishido

Also Known As:

The Eel (USA)

Runtime:

117 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Argentina:16 | Chile:18 | Hong Kong:IIB | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | South Korea:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | Australia:R

Company:

Eisei Gekijo

Movie Connections:

Featured in Especial Cannes: 50 Anos de Festival (1997) (TV)

Exploring the Inner Turmoil of the Outwardly Placid Mind

Guilt and Redemption are the pervasive themes of this quirky, disturbing, very fine film from Shohei Imamura. The consequences of the instantaneous loss of control molds this story in the way such life happenstances unfold - slowly - and Imamura knows how to take us with him in this strange tale, pausing here and there for the surreal, dreamlike sequences that can and do alter our perceptions of reality.

Takuro Yamashita (Kôji Yakusho) is a quietly married blue-collar worker who spends some evenings fishing for sport and food, his passive wife Emiko (Chiho Terada) sending him off with boxed lunches. Takuro receives an anonymous letter that states his wife is having an affair while he slips away to fish. Incredulous, Takuro returns early form his nocturnal fishing to find his wife engaged in passionate sex and Takuro stabs her to death, then bicycles to the police station and turns himself in for the murder of Emiko. He is imprisoned for eight years and conforms to the rigid life of the incarcerated, his only companion is a pet eel with whom he feels he can communicate.

Upon release from prison, Takuro is placed under the supervision of a kindly priest who helps him start a barbershop, living a quiet secluded life, his only friends being his pet eel and a strange character who has set up a field station to attract friendly aliens from outer space! All is calm until he encounters Keiko (Misa Shimizu) who closely resembles his murdered wife and indeed is suicidal from her own slashes in an attempt to negate the genetic threat of her mentally disturbed mother and her own consignation with an underworld lover Eiji Dojima (Tomorowo Taguchi), a man who holds her under his control to gain the mad mother's money committed to his evil schemes. Takuro saves Keiko from her suicide attempt and the priest encourages him to take on Keiko as an assistant.

The barbershop does well and Takuro and Keiko make good business partners. Takuro is emotionally dead over his guilt for the murder of his wife and refuses to entertain the idea of opening himself to Keiko's loving advances. There are too many similarities between the dead Emiko and the frightened Keiko. Yet when all of the forces collide in the climax of the film, Takuro realizes how much of his past is mixed with fantasy/nightmare and, equally, how much his present is dependent on his interaction with Keiko (now pregnant with Dojima's baby), the priest, his sci-fi friend and the forces who would destroy Keiko and his quiet existence. The ending, somewhat marred by a keystone kops like fight, reveals the cracks in Takuro's mental armor and the possibility for redemption unfolds in a tender way.

There are many levels of interpretation to this fable and to explore each of them would rob the first-time viewer of this little film of the pleasure of the chess game Imamura sets for us. The acting is solid, the night scenes are lovely, and the day scenes are as visually chaotic as the real world in which we live. There could be improvements in the editing, definitely in the musical score and in the camera work. But those are minor blemishes in this film that engages the mind in the challenge of entering a new mode of thought. A strange little film, this, and not for everyone. Grady Harp