The Eel (Unagi) (1997)

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The eel is a strange mix of a movie. It starts off a little violent, moves to a cast of quirky characters, adds serious relationship dilemmas, includes some hallucinogenic visions and ends in a realistic way. Koji Yakusho could read the most inane dialog and make it seem the height of theatrical acting, and performs perfectly. However, the movie is two hours long and I lost interest several tim... read more

Even though I have always been interested in Asian movies, I've never been really familiar with Shohei Imamura's work (as a matter of fact, without counting this flick, I have seen only one other full length feature and a short). Still, since this movie won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film festival back then in 1997, I was really eager to check it out. Eventually, it is a rather strange flick mi... read more

White-collar worker Yamashita finds out that his wife has a lover visiting her when he's away, suddenly returns home and kills her. After eight years in prison, he returns to live in a small village, opens a barber shop (he was trained as a barber in prison) and talks almost to no-one except for the eel he "befriended" in prison. One day he finds the unconscious body of Keiko, who attempted suicide and reminds him of his wife. She starts to work at his shop, but he doesn't let her become close to him.