Zegen (Shohei Imamura, 1987)

Mitsuko Baisho and Ken Ogata in Zegen

Cast: Ken Ogata, Mitsuko Baisho, Ko Chun-hsiung, Norihei Miki, Hiroyuki Konishi, Sansho Shinsui, Tetta Sugimoto, Taiji Tonoyama, Leonard Kuma, Fujio Tokita, Minori Terada. Screenplay: Shohei Imamura, Kota Okabe. Cinematography: Masao Tochizawa. Art direction: Yoshinaga Yoko'o. Film editing: Hajime Okayasu. Music: Shinichiro Ikebe. 

Sardonic and often raunchy, Shohei Imamura's Zegen takes a jaundiced look at Japanese imperial ambitions in the early 20th century. Ken Ogata stars as Iheji Muraoka, an actual figure who made his fortune by running a chain of brothels in southeastern Asia. In the film, he jumps ship off of Hong Kong and sets up as a barber before being recruited to spy against Russia during the Russo-Japanese War. He becomes convinced of the greatness of the emperor of Japan, especially after being financially rewarded for his services in Manchuria. Returning to Hong Kong, he sets up his business as a zegen -- a pimp -- with the aid of an old love, Shiho (Mitsuko Baisho, recruiting Japanese women to serve in his brothels in Malaya. Eventually, he's challenged both in business and in his relationship with Shiho, by a Chinese rival, Wang (Ko Chun-hsiung). With abundant nudity and talk about sex, Zegen is certainly not reticent about the business it examines, but it also serves as a scathing look at that era in the history of Japan. There are a few really funny moments, such as Muraoka's failed attempt at harakiri, in which he discovers not only that it hurts but that there's actual blood. But it's the kind of film that makes you wince more often than it makes you laugh. 

Vengeance Is Mine (Shohei Imamura, 1979)

Mayumi Ogawa and Ken Ogata in Vengeance Is Mine

Iwao Enokizu: Ken Ogata
Shizuo Enokizu: Rentaro Mikuni
Kazuko Enokizu: Mitsuko Baisho
Haru Asano: Mayumi Ogawa
Hisano Asano: Nijiko Kiyokawa
Kayo Enokizu: Chocho Miyako
Tanejiro Shibata: Taiji Tonoyama
Daihachi Baba: Goro Tarumi
Kawashima: Yoshi Kato
Prostitute: Toshie Negishi

Director: Shohei Imamura
Screenplay: Masaru Baba
Based on a novel by Ryuzo Saki
Cinematography: Shinsaku Himeda
Production design: Akiyoshi Satani
Film editing: Keiichi Uraoka
Music: Shinichiro Ikebe

It might have been called Vengeance Without a Cause for all Shohei Imamura's film tells us about what drove Iwao Enokizu, a character based on the real-life con man and serial killer Akira Nishiguchi, to his criminal excesses. We are left to see them as the product of societal decay in postwar Japan, or perhaps as something in the air -- as the strikingly fantastic end of the film seems to suggest. It's a film with all the repellent fascination of a rattlesnake, and Imamura is intent on holding the viewer's gaze on the crimes. Nothing escapes Imamura's scathing treatment: not motherhood, not the police, not religion, and certainly not Japan's prewar history, which is touched on in a scene that a lesser filmmaker might have used as a source for Enokizu's disorder: His father is forced to submit to an imperial soldier as the boy Iwao looks on in disgust. Ken Ogata is attractively repellent as the adult Enokizu, and Rentaro Mikuni portrays the father as a man who hides his moral cowardice behind a façade of devout Catholicism. There are daring performances by Mitsuko Baisho as Iwao's wife, erotically fascinated by her husband's father, by Mayumi Ogawa as the manager of a sleazy inn who gets fatally ensnared by Enokizu, and by Nijiko Kiyokawa as her grasping, voyeuristic mother. It's part crime film and part horror movie.