Vengeance Is Mine (1979 film)
| Fukushū suruwa wareniari | |
|---|---|
Movie Poster
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| Directed by | Shōhei Imamura |
| Produced by | Kazuo Inoue |
| Written by | Masaru Baba, Ryūzō Saki (novel) |
| Starring | Ken Ogata, Mayumi Ogawa, Rentarō Mikuni, Mitsuko Baisho |
| Music by | Shin’ichirō Ikebe |
| Cinematography | Sinsaku Himeda |
| Edited by | Keiichi Uraoka |
| Distributed by | Shochiku |
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Release date
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1979 |
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Running time
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140 min. |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Vengeance Is Mine (Japanese title: 復讐するは我にあり, fukushū suru wa ware ni ari) is a 1979 film directed by Shōhei Imamura, based on the book of the same name by Ryūzō Saki. It depicts the true story of serial killer Akira Nishiguchi (Iwao Enokizu in the film).
It stars Ken Ogata as Enokizu, with Mayumi Ogawa, Rentarō Mikuni, Mitsuko Baisho, Nijiko Kiyokawa and Chocho Miyako. The film won the 1979 Best Picture Award at the Japanese Academy Awards, and won Best Screenplay at the Yokohama Film Festival, where Ken Ogata also won Best Actor.
The film's story is told in a series of flashbacks. In the opening scenes, Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata), is a prisoner of the police. A huge crowd of journalists and an angry mob greets him as he enters a cell. The police quiz him but he refuses to answer. The story goes back to the initial murders. Enokizu tricks and then kills two men and steals a large sum of money. He puts on a suit and disappears. Enokizu travels to another city. At the train station, he asks a taxi driver to take him to an inn where he can get a prostitute. Enokizu is sexually insatiable. He tells the innkeeper, a woman called Haru (Mayumi Ogawa), that he is a professor at Kyoto University. The police, searching for Enokizu, put out bulletins with his face on television. The prostitute thinks the professor is Enokizu, but she is told not to go to the police because of her job.
Enokizu's background is the son of a Catholic father (Rentaro Mikuni) who lost his fishing boats to the Japanese navy in the 1930s. Enokizu is a rebellious, violent child. As a young man, he is convicted and imprisoned. His mother is ill. His wife (Mitsuko Baisho) is attracted to his father. She divorces Enokizu, but then is persuaded by Enokizu's father to remarry him, due to the father's Catholic beliefs. After the remarriage, she tries to seduce the father, but fails. Enokizu accuses her of sleeping with his father when he was in prison.
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