Shohei Imamura

Vengeance Is Mine

Vengeance Is Mine

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.

Film Info

  • Japan
  • 1979
  • 140 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • Japanese
  • Spine #384

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • Restored high-definition digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2005 featuring critic Tony Rayns
  • Excerpts from a 1999 interview with director Shohei Imamura, produced by the Directors Guild of Japan
  • Trailer and teaser
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Atkinson, a 1994 interview with Imamura by filmmaker Toichi Nakata, and writings by Imamura on Vengeance Is Mine and his approach to directing

    New cover by Eric Skillman

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • Restored high-definition digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2005 featuring critic Tony Rayns
  • Excerpts from a 1999 interview with director Shohei Imamura, produced by the Directors Guild of Japan
  • Trailer and teaser
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Atkinson, a 1994 interview with Imamura by filmmaker Toichi Nakata, and writings by Imamura on Vengeance Is Mine and his approach to directing

    New cover by Eric Skillman
Vengeance Is Mine
Cast
Ken Ogata
Iwao Enokizu
Mayumi Ogawa
Haru Asano
Mitsuko Baisho
Kazuko Enokizu
Frankie Sakai
Captain Kawai
Kazuo Kitamura
Shigemi Ideike
Chocho Miyako
Kayo Enokizu
Nijiko Kiyokawa
Hisano Asano
Rentaro Mikuni
Shizuo Enokizu
Credits
Director
Shohei Imamura
Producer
Kazuo Inoue
Based on the novel by
Ryuzo Saki
Screenplay
Masaru Baba
Photography
Shinsaku Himeda
Music
Shinichiro Ikebe

Current

Shohei Imamura on Vengeance Is Mine
Shohei Imamura on Vengeance Is Mine
In this excerpt from a 1999 interview produced by the Directors Guild of Japan, director Shohei Imamura talks about the personal investigative approach he took to making the 1979 serial killer drama Vengeance Is Mine, for which he viewed himself as m…
Vengeance Is Mine:Civilization and Its Discontents
Vengeance Is Mine:Civilization and Its Discontents
Define the Japanese New Wave however you like—there are innumerable possible launching points, and the name players in the fifties and sixties were old and young and in between—but from any juncture, Shohei Imamura was a primary figure and, at th…

By Michael Atkinson

William Friedkin’s Top 10
William Friedkin’s Top 10

“I discovered Criterion in the late eighties with the laserdisc of
 Citizen Kane, which I still watch,” writes director William Friedkin, whose films include The French Connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, and 2011’s Killer Joe.