1968 film by Shōhei Imamura

1989 film by Shōhei Imamura

1963 film by Shōhei Imamura

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 culminates in a revelrous march on the Tokyo Imperial Palace, which turns into a massacre. Characteristically, Imamura focuses not on the leaders of the country, but on characters in the lower classes and on the fringes of society.

1966 film by Shōhei Imamura

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

A rambunctious and ribald tale of a troupe of travelling actors who alternate highlights of kabuki theatre with strip shows.

1983 film directed by Shōhei Imamura

“In Search of Unreturned Soldiers was about former soldiers of the Japanese army who chose not to return to Japan after the war. I found several of them who had remained in Thailand. Two years later, I invited one of them to make his first return visit to Japan and documented it in Outlaw-Matsu Returns Home. During the filming, my subject Fujita asked me to buy him a cleaver so that he could kill his ‘vicious brother.’ I was shocked, and asked him to wait a day so that I could plan how to film the scene. By the next morning, to my relief, Fujita had calmed down and changed his mind about killing his brother. But I couldn’t have had a sharper insight into the ethical questions provoked by this kind of documentary filmmaking.” —Shôhei Imamura

The searching of un-return japanese soldier in Malaysia by Imamura Shohei with the help from local people.