Vengeance Is Mine

Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) is a thief and a killer. We know that because we see him be arrested and hear him confess at the start of the film. But this exciting story, from director Shôhei Imamura (The Pornographers) isn’t about who did it, but why. Why did Enokizu kill all those people? The answers, as Imamura presents them, are not easy to understand. The disturbing feeling you get as the story progresses that maybe he’s really just a bad man at heart is one that will haunt you long after the film ends. Imamura tells the story in a way that can hardly be termed chronological, given the way the plot jumps around from event to event, past to present and back again, but the cumulative effect of watching the story told this way builds in your mind exponentially. Thirty five years after it first shocked audiences, the film still thrills.