alr

Zegen

Screening on Film
Directed by Shohei Imamura.
With Ken Ogata, Mitsuko Baisho, Chung-Hsiung Ko.
Japan, 1987, 35mm, color, 124 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: Japan Foundation

The title translates as "the pimp," designating the character who serves as our guide through Imamura's satiric vision of Japanese expansionism. Ken Ogata plays a Japanese hairdresser in Hong Kong at the turn of the twentieth century who ends up a spy in Manchuria for the Japanese government. Seeing the writing on the wall, he turns his entrepreneurial skills from espionage towards establishing a string of brothels in Southeast Asia, figuring that once the Japanese armies invade, he'll make a fortune.

Part of film series

Read more

Vanishing Points: The Films of Shohei Imamura

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig

Read more

Ben Rivers, Back to the Land

Read more

Harvard Undergraduate Cinematheque

Read more

Make Way for Tomorrow. Carson Lund’s Eephus

Read more

Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Collective Monologue

Read more

David Lynch, New Dimensions

Read more

Museum Hours: Mati Diop’s Dahomey

Read more

Albert Serra, or Cinematic Time Regained

Read more

Wang Bing’s Youth Trilogy