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The Eel
(Unagi)

Screening on Film
Directed by Shohei Imamura.
With Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Fujio Tsuneta.
Japan, 1997, 35mm, color, 117 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: New Yorker Films

An offbeat return to the terrain of Vengeance Is Mine, The Eel again features a murderer as protagonist, although here the killings are a crime of passion. The film primarily concerns the killer’s attempt to isolate and protect himself from society and from emotion upon his parole. Koji Yakusho (Eureka, Babel) plays the main character, whose only confidant is the titular animal and who is offered redemption by a woman he rescues from a suicide attempt and by the eccentric inhabitants of a small town.

Part of film series

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