Eijanaika (film)

Eijanaika / Why Not?
DVD cover for Eijanaika (1981)
Directed by	Shohei Imamura
Produced by	Shohei Imamura Shoichi Ozawa Shigemi Sugisaki Jiro Tomoda
Written by	Hisashi Yamauchi
Starring	Kaori Momoi Shigeru Izumiya Ken Ogata Shigeru Tsuyuguchi Masao Kusakari Yūko Tanaka Mitsuko Baisho
Music by	Shinichirô Ikebe
Cinematography	Shinsaku Himeda (as Masahisa Himeda)
Edited by	Keiichi Uraoka
Distributed by	Imamura Productions, Shochiku Films Ltd., Beverly Pictures (USA)
Release date	March 14, 1981 (Japan); January 8, 1981 (USA)
Running time	151 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Eijanaika or Why Not? (ええじゃないか, Ee ja nai ka^?) is a 1981 Japanese film by director Shohei Imamura. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.

The film depicts carnivalesque atmosphere summed up by the cry "Ee 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.