Synopsis
A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.
The Eel
Cast
Koji Yakusho Misa Shimizu Akira Emoto Fujio Tokita Mitsuko Baisho Show Aikawa Ken Kobayashi Sabu Kawahara Etsuko Ichihara Tomorowo Taguchi Chiho Terada Sanshô Shinsui Koichi Ueda Ken Mitsuishi Hiroyuki Konishi Shoichi Ozawa Makoto Satō Fumio Tokita Shinsho Nakamaru Sei Hiraizumi Seiji Kurasaki Toshirō Ishidō Masayuki Akinaga Masahiro Noguchi Takashi Odajima Kentarô Sakai Teresa Saponangelo Kazuya Sasaki Kazuyuki Senba Show All…
Director
Writers
Original Writer
Editor
Cinematography
Production Design
Set Decoration
Composer
Makeup
Studios
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
Unagi, L'anguilla, L'Anguille, Der Aal, La anguila, 鳗鱼, A Enguia, 우나기, Угорь, うなぎ, Ålen, Węgorz, Úhoř
Genres
Themes
Releases by Date
Premiere
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Czechia
Eiga-Sai Film Festival
Theatrical
12 May 1997
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FranceU
24 May 1997
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Japan
19 Mar 1998
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Netherlands
01 May 1999
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South Korea18
09 Oct 2010
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Russian Federation
Physical
27 Jun 2011
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Netherlands
Releases by Country
Czechia
27 Jan 2013
- Premiere Eiga-Sai Film Festival
France
12 May 1997
- TheatricalU
Japan
24 May 1997
- Theatrical
Netherlands
19 Mar 1998
- Theatrical
27 Jun 2011
- Physical DVD
Russian Federation
09 Oct 2010
- Theatrical Ретроспектива фильмов Сёхэя Имамуры в Москве
South Korea
01 May 1999
- Theatrical18
Popular reviews
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While it doesn't come off as the audacious director we knew in his early years, there exists something remarkably self reflective about this film.
Take for instance the main characters prison sentence, which times up perfectly with the 8 years Shohei stepped away from feature films. It's not a film to be taken on a literal surface level, that seems clear enough from the occasional dips into magical realism. It's about trying to learn for yourself if you still have what it takes to make it in a world that has changed while you've stayed still. A world that may not be so inviting after an extended absence. I see the director in this character more so than any if…
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If anything, THE EEL immediately grabs your attention and Shōhei Imamura's calling cards are all over the film's opening scenes: mysterious letters, illicit sex, a brutal knife murder, and an unlikely friendship with an animal. In fact, the first 15 minutes masterfully set up a film that oddly never materializes. Instead it segues into a rom-com peopled with idiosyncratic characters and dotted with bursts of magical realism. The movie's reluctance to settle on a particular tone is admirable and Imamura, largely assisted by the excellence of his two leads, does manage to pull most of this off. But I'll be damned if I know why he made it.
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36/100
Second viewing, last seen 20 years ago. No Taste of Cherry-style reassessment, alas, though I watched the longer "director's cut"; if anything, I like it even less now, having seen most of Imamura's earlier films in the interim. (This was the first one I ever saw.) At the time, I complained that "every scene feels like it belongs to a different movie—veering [...] from stark horror to contemplative drama to slapstick comedy to tender romance to whatever the hell's going on in the borderline-hysterical final reel." Admittedly, one could say the same of some Korean films that I quite like (e.g. The Host), but in those cases it feels as if the film is continually, creatively expanding its range,…
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Guilt and wound invisibly enhance each other- they create an emotional prison that inhibits the healing of the soul, yet a reminder of the sense that change can happen, and consideration and forgiveness may alleviate our burden. Alternately saddening and absurd, Imamura's reflection on the intricacies of the human psyche and the ambiguities of life transcends the filmic constraints- like bespeaking a convoluted interplay of love, jealousy, distress, and regret.
Deceptively obvious, shifting moods with plain sailing ease, this film soundly delves into the frailties of mankind, the ineliminability that the human spirit possesses. In all sincerity, anchored by the tacit tenderness in Yakusho and Shimizu's performance and immaculate visuals reflecting the bleakness, "The Eel" emphasizes seeking the sense of love, consideration, and respect in the face of situational viciousness and misery- an essential offbeat human drama replete with continuing emotional wavelets.
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This film opens with a truly horrific act of violence. Our protagonist brutally murders his wife, while she is having an affair, and Imamura stages it as bloodily as possible. One fascinating choice is how blood not only flies across the frame but splatters onto the camera. Our view into the film’s world is made concrete in space, we are made complicit.
It’s affronting but even more interesting due to the film’s actual narrative. We jump eight years and the killer, who turned himself in immediately, is out of prison and on parole. He has an eel with him (the titular eel) whom he can open up to and talk to. This aside, he is taciturn and reserved. He symbolises…
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Shohei Imamura finds an unusual perspective on human foibles again, set against the backdrop of a working class community. He has too much of a brisk hand over his material and rarely goes in for penetrating insight.
Accomplished businessman Yamashita (Koji Yakusho) comes home to find his wife in the arms of another man, and in a sudden rage, murders them (and it’s gory!); he is released from prison eight years later where he attempts to find new solace in a fishing village. We get semi-interesting side notes on a series of offbeat characters.
But something’s off with The Eel. We finally get a scene where Yamashita bares his emotions; he bares his frustrations and his reticence when it comes…
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Redemption in the estranged place projected to internal; emotional contradiction when this life becomes peculiarly soap operatic (treasured within the depths).
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Added to my watchlist because I'm a die hard Koji Yakusho fan, but only right before pressing play, found out this film TIED for the fucking Palme d'Or with Taste of Cherry!!! The latter is widely regarded as one of the most important films ever made, and the fact that I'd never even heard of The Eel was super intriguing to me. The Palme d'Or (with 1 or 2 years in exception) is the highest honor in cinema - definitely trumps a Best Picture Oscar or anything like that. So this immediately spiked my interest.
And this film is stunning. Some of the most beautiful transitional shots I've ever seen - Jade can verify, I literally gasped at a couple…
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The Eel's high concept premise is beyond fascinating – a powerful story about forgiveness in the face of grave sin and whether or not these characters are worthy or deserve love again. Koji Yakusho is one of the most underrated actors in the history of film. He makes a complex character in Takuro Yamashita feel understandable, no matter how unforgivable the crimes he committed. Portraying the character to be harsher on himself than anybody else, showing the drastic change in his character believably, making his turn into the second chapter of his life feel grounded in reality. The longing for a connection between Takuro and Misa Shimizu (Keiko), as he continually maintains the distance to control his confused urges, shows…
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Esta compleja y hermosa película está construida sobre correspondencias y contrastes; entre paisaje y sociedad, hombre y naturaleza, entre muerte y vida, cordura y locura, lo reprimido y lo desenfrenado, sexualidad y abstinencia, comedia y tragedia, alienación y redención. Los numerosos hilos de estos temas están entretejidos en un patrón complejo que desafía un análisis completo. Sin embargo, 'The Eel' tiene un buen ritmo y es fácil de ver y disfrutar.
La película está ambientada en Japón, el país más autodisciplinado y dócil, y lo que se exploran son los límites y limitaciones del conformismo y el control. Se controla el comportamiento, se mantienen las emociones en el interior; sin embargo, cuando la gente mira hacia adentro, encuentra un hervor que aterroriza. -
A late film by Shohei Imamura that, with its odd characters and quirky plot, is about redemption and forgiveness. Once again he focuses on marginalized people - ex-cons, the mentally-ill, the victimized - with all their flaws and eccentricities in a caring and often humorous way that helps us care about their struggles and their fate.
Tokura Yamashita (Kōji Yakusho) is released on parole from prison 8 years after the murder of his wife. His parole officer's a Buddhist priest and he settles in a remote riverside village where he sets up a barbershop, a trade he learned in prison. Guarded around others (except for his pet eel to whom he talks), he's gradually taken in by the offbeat people…
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everybody has sins. we are all the same.
there were two films that shared the 1997 palme d'or, and while taste of cherry is the film most will remember, the eel is the one i have historically preferred. to say which is better is, for me, a moot point - both were outshined by wkw's happy together, for which wkw was given best director as a sort of consolation prize.
i decided to rewatch this because of my recent viewing of eureka. whereas one is about the survivors of a massacre, the other is about what happens to the murderer himself. it's a question that i think is relevant, particularly in a time of cancel culture. cancel culture says equally as much…
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