Live stream preview

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Watch this video and more on The Criterion Channel

Start your free trial

Already subscribed? Sign in

Directed by Shohei Imamura

Vengeance Is Mine

2h 20m

Directed by Shohei Imamura • 1979 • Japan
Starring Ken Ogata, Mayumi Ogawa, Mitsuko Baisho

A thief, a murderer, and a charming lady-killer, Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) is on the run from the police. Director Shohei Imamura turns this fact-based story—about the seventy-eight-day killing spree of a remorseless man from a devoutly Catholic family—into a cold, perverse, and at times diabolically funny examination of the primitive coexisting with the modern. More than just a true-crime tale, VENGEANCE IS MINE bares humanity’s snarling id.

Up Next in Directed by Shohei Imamura

  • Eijanaika
    2:31:30
    Eijanaika

    Eijanaika

    Directed by Shohei Imamura • 1981 • Japan
    Starring Shigeru Izumiya, Kaori Momoi, Masao Kusakari

    In the 1860s, near the turbulent end of the Edo era, Genji (Shigeru Izumiya), a peasant returning to Japan after six years of exile in America, searches for his wife and becomes swept up in the curren...

  • The Ballad of Narayama
    2:10:00
    The Ballad of Narayama

    The Ballad of Narayama

    Directed by Shohei Imamura • 1983 • Japan
    Starring Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto, Tonpei Hidari

    Imbued with the power of myth, Shohei Imamura’s Palme d’Or–winning magnum opus is a stark and stunning vision of a world ruled by the elemental laws of nature and survival. Against the backdrop of the ch...

  • Zegen
    2:04:38
    Zegen

    Zegen

    Directed by Shohei Imamura • 1987 • Japan
    Starring Ken Ogata, Mitsuko Baisho, Ko Chun-Hsiung

    This fierce satire of Japanese colonial ambition traces the true story of Iheiji Muraoka (Ken Ogata), a Japanese spy in early-twentieth-century Manchuria, as he turns to another profession to “help” his ...

×