Vengeance Is Mine (1979 film)

Vengeance Is Mine (Japanese title: 復讐するは我にあり, fukushū suru wa ware ni ari) is a 1979 film directed by Shohei Imamura, based on the book of the same name by Ryuzo Saki. It depicts the true story of serial killer Akira Nishiguchi (Iwao Enokizu in the film).

It stars Ken Ogata as Enokizu, with Mayumi Ogawa, Rentaro Mikuni, Mitsuko Baisho, Nijiko Kiyokawa and Chocho Miyako. The film won the 1979 Best Picture Award at the Japanese Academy Awards, and won Best Screenplay at the Yokohama Film Festival, where Ken Ogata also won Best Actor.

Plot

A thief, murderer, and lady charmer, Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) is on the run from the police.

Shohei Imamura turns this fact-based story of the seventy-eight-day killing spree of a remorseless man from a devoutly Catholic family into a cold and perverse portrait of the primitive coexisting with the modern.

The film covers topics close to heart in Imamura's three-hour epic, The Profound Desire of the Gods back in 1968, which also delved into human behaviour in extremis. Over a decade later, the release of Vengeance Is Mine touches upon the moral squalor of moden Japan during and after the war, too. Its historical context is of a country that oozes self-hating guilt, which indirectly manifests itself in the form of a serial killer's maturation and anti-career.

References

Sources

External links

• by Jasper Sharp
• review by Roger Ebert

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