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1.Black Rain starring: Yoshiko Tanaka, Kazuo Kitamura, Etsuko Ichihara, Shoichi Ozawa, Norihei Miki directed by: Shohei Imamura September 04, 2001
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $6.50
I found a used DVD on eBay for $35. It wasn't worth it. The image is letterboxed, but so small that you have to blow it up to resolution-killing proportions. I also own the VHS and laserdisc of "Black Rain." The tape offers a MUCH better image. The laserdisc gives the best results of all. I am outraged at the prices being asked here. I really hope this great movie will be re-released with proper care, and that the people who want to rip you off will be left holding the bag.

2.The Ballad of Narayama starring: Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto, Aki Takejo, Tonpei Hidari, Seiji Kurasaki directed by: Shohei Imamura June 16, 2000
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $2.77
There are some classic images in Japanese film, scenes that stick with you long after the film is over. Takakura Ken, tattooed and brandishing his sword, about to take vengeance for his master. A hill with five mounds, each with a sword sticking from the top. This scene of Ogata Ken carrying his mother on his back, climbing up the mountain where he will leave her to die, has got to be among them. It is a powerful and moving image. "The Ballad of Narayama" ("Narayama Bushiko") is a re-make of the 1958 film of the same name, which is in turn an adaptation of two books by Fukuzawa Shichiro, "The Ballad of Narayama" and "The Men of Tohoku", which were in turn based on an old folk legend called "The Mountain where Old People were Abandoned" from the 11th Century book Konjaku Monogatari. ... Read More

3.Eijanaika starring: Shigeru Izumiya, Kaori Momoi, Masao Kusakari, Ken Ogata, Shigeru Tsuyuguchi directed by: Shohei Imamura June 27, 2000
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $6.57
I really enjoyed this film. A good and fairly unpredictable plot as well as great acting from all involved. Must see.

4.The Pornographers starring: Shoichi Ozawa, Sumiko Sakamoto, Masaomi Kondo, Keiko Sagawa, Ganjiro Nakamura directed by: Shohei Imamura July 08, 1992
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $2.98
Just describing the story of any one of Shohei Imamura's films won't be enough to convey its oddity. Imamura's films are the misfits of Japanese cinema. They deal with bizarre, marginal characters in grotesque and unusual situations. Don't expect Kurosawa's epic sweep or Ozu's understatement. Imamura's films are flamboyantly crude and bizarre. His closest analogue in Japanese literature might be Kenzaburo Oe -- Oe's short story collection Teach Us To Outgrow Our Madness has a very similar tone. (And Imamura's more recent film Warm Water Under A Red Bridge is nicer than his early work, much like Oe's A Quiet Life.) This film is about a frumpy middle-aged man named Subu who makes money by filming and selling illegal pornography. But he runs a small operation, which makes him vulnerable to just about ... Read More

5.The Eel starring: Kôji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, Akira Emoto, Fujio Tsuneta directed by: Shohei Imamura June 06, 2000
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $0.89
Though Imamura's engaging psychodrama of regret and sexual repression opens on an overheated and violent act, it soon cools to a slow burn, as the friendship between two troubled people blossoms tenuously before taking an unexpected turn. Yakusho, an expert at playing stone-faced, emotionally distant protagonists, is both sympathetic and impossible to fathom. Poising the action between icy restraint and simmering catharsis, Imamura--who indulges himself in a couple of surreal vignettes--makes his "Eel" a reflecting pool for modern malaise.

6.Vengeance Is Mine starring: Ken Ogata, Mayumi Ogawa, Rentaro Mikuni, Mitsuko Baisho, Nijiko Kiyokawa directed by: Shohei Imamura September 03, 1996
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $2.18
I was glued to the screen for more than two hours when I watched Vengeance is Mine. This is now one of my all-time favorite films (and one of Roger Ebert's "great movies"). I am having difficulty conveying why I loved this film so much. Aside from the great cinematography, story, directing, and acting, there is something else special here. It is one of those extremely rare films which I knew I was going to love as soon as it started. It continued to get better and better with each minuet. Maybe it was the sheer originality of this Japanese masterpiece... Anyway, I would urge every film-lover to see "Vengeance is mine" as soon as possible.

7.Dr. Akagi starring: Akira Emoto, Kumiko Aso, Juro Kara, Masanori Sera, Jacques Gamblin directed by: Shohei Imamura January 14, 2003
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $3.99
The setting for this film is in Japan, circa 1945. The Japanese military are near the point of surrender. However, the war against hepatitis wages on, and one Doctor is struggling to wage a war of his own. Enter Dr. Akagi (Akira Emoto) whose own battle with a hepatitis epidemic are just as important as the Imperial Japanese army. While the empire is struggling in a losing cause, life goes on for Dr. Akagi; as he enlists the help of various people into his cuase to irradicate, or at least minimize the near hopeless situation he finds himself in. Obsessed with liver disorders, Dr. Akagi is called Dr. Liver by the townspeople he administers to. Those helping the Doctor are a morphine addicted surgeon, a former prostitute, and an escaped Dutch prisoner-of-war. The main task of Dr. Akagi is trying to heal his patients ... Read More

8.Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (Ws Sub) starring: Kôji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, Mansaku Fuwa, Isao Natsuyagi directed by: Shohei Imamura June 24, 2003
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price: $9.78
Fun movie with a delightful premise and pretty heroine with a weak bladder. As an analogy for societies underlying supressive and pious attitudes about creative copulatory co-options it speaks volumes. Based on an old Asian mythology about the joyous release of inner inhibitions & muscle control and how said personal development attracts the bounty of the Law of Attraction. Without calling personal theology into question, the director leans towards a revealing of the characters "do under others as you would have under yourself" motivations. He can't stop looking, wondering and wanting the warm wet waterful wonderment of her quiet cautionary secret. A tale of 3 fish - one out of water, one pregnant with water and the others enjoying the water.

9.Dr Akagi starring: Akira Emoto, Kumiko Aso directed by: Shohei Imamura
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price:
Fun movie with a delightful premise and pretty heroine with a weak bladder. As an analogy for societies underlying supressive and pious attitudes about creative copulatory co-options it speaks volumes. Based on an old Asian mythology about the joyous release of inner inhibitions & muscle control and how said personal development attracts the bounty of the Law of Attraction. Without calling personal theology into question, the director leans towards a revealing of the characters "do under others as you would have under yourself" motivations. He can't stop looking, wondering and wanting the warm wet waterful wonderment of her quiet cautionary secret. A tale of 3 fish - one out of water, one pregnant with water and the others enjoying the water.

10.The Eel starring: Kôji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, Fujio Tsuneta, Akira Emoto directed by: Shohei Imamura
Average Rating: >>More Details		Used Price:
Though Imamura's engaging psychodrama of regret and sexual repression opens on an overheated and violent act, it soon cools to a slow burn, as the friendship between two troubled people blossoms tenuously before taking an unexpected turn. Yakusho, an expert at playing stone-faced, emotionally distant protagonists, is both sympathetic and impossible to fathom. Poising the action between icy restraint and simmering catharsis, Imamura--who indulges himself in a couple of surreal vignettes--makes his "Eel" a reflecting pool for modern malaise.

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