is a 1958 Japanese black

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

and

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

Shōhei Imamura was a Japanese film director. His main interest as a filmmaker lay in the depiction of the lower strata of Japanese society. A key figure in the Japanese New Wave, who continued working into the 21st century, Imamura is the only director from J ...

Plot

Ten years after the end of the

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

, a group of ex-soldiers meets to dig up a supply of morphine which had been hidden in an air-raid shelter: Onuma, pharmacist Nakata, professional criminal Yamamoto, and teacher Sawai. As the men had once been informed by their superior, Lieutenant Hashimoto, that only three men knew of the morphine, not four, they are at first suspicious of Sawai to be an intruder. They are joined by a woman, Shima, who declares that she is the younger sister of the Lieutenant who has died in the meantime. The area around the shelter has been turned into a shopping district, while the shelter itself now lies in the basement of a butcher shop. The group rents an empty store from corrupt local landlord Kinzō and starts digging a tunnel to the butcher shop. Shima announces that she will sleep with the man who digs up the most during their venture. Later, she seduces Kinzō's son Satoru, although Satoru tries to court the butcher's daughter Ryūko. Yamamoto is arrested for a burglary, but escapes and returns to the group. He tries to rape Shima, but is stopped by Sawai. When Kinzō announces that the area will be demolished in the next days by a decree of the city's council, the group's plan becomes a race against time. Sawai eventually kills the violent Yamamoto, but is himself buried alive under sand when the group has reached the basement, left behind by the others. With only Onuma, Nakata and Shima left alive, Onuma learns that Shima is actually Lieutenant Hashimoto's widow, and that she and Nakata, who turns out to be the intruder, had been charged for killing her husband but released later for lack of evidence. Shima poisons Onuma and then stabs Nakata to have the morphine all to herself. Satoru calls the police when he stumbles onto the scene. While fleeing through a heavy rain storm, Shima slips on a wet crossing and drowns in the river running underneath.

Cast

Hiroyuki Nagato , stage name of Akio Kato (加藤晃夫), was a Japanese actor. He starred in ''Season of the Sun'', '' Endless Desire'', '' My Second Brother'', '' Stolen Desire'', and '' Sukeban Deka'', and ''Yo-Yo Girl Cop''. Life and career Nagato was bo ...

as Satoru *

Sanae Nakahara Sanae Nakahara (Japanese: 中原早苗; July 31, 1935 – May 15, 2012) was a Japanese actress from Tokyo. She starred in over 80 films and television shows, the most prominent being her role in the films Lady Snowblood (1973), Yagyu Clan Conspi ...

as Ryūko *

Kō Nishimura was a Japanese actor who appeared in supporting roles in such films as Akira Kurosawa's ''The Bad Sleep Well'' and '' Yojimbo'', Kihachi Okamoto's ''Sword of Doom'', Yoshitaro Nomura's ''Zero Focus'', and Kon Ichikawa's '' The Burmese Harp'' ( ...

as Nakata *

Taiji Tonoyama was a Japanese character actor who made many appearances in films and on television from 1939 to 1989. He was a close friend of Kaneto Shindo and one of his regular cast members. He was also an essayist. In 1950 he helped form the film company Ki ...

as Onuma *

Shōichi Ozawa was a Japanese actor, radio host, singer, and prominent researcher and expert on Japanese folk art. He also founded the Shabondama-za theater company. Ozawa, who was born in Tokyo, graduated from Waseda University. He began acting after college, ...

as Sawai * Takeshi Katō as Yamamoto *

Misako Watanabe is a Japanese stage, film and television actress. A graduate of the Haiyuza Theatre Company, she gave her film debut in Tadashi Imai's ''Tower of Lilies'' (1953) before becoming a contract player at the Nikkatsu film studios. She appeared in alm ...

as Shima *

Ichirō Sugai was a Japanese actor. He appeared in more than 300 films between 1930 and 1971. Sugai often worked with Kaneto Shindo, Kenji Mizoguchi and Kōzaburō Yoshimura. Selected filmography * ''The Water Magician'' (1933) * ''Spring on Leper's Island ...

as Onoyu Kinzō

Production

''Endless Desire'' was the third film Imamura had been assigned to by

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

studios. In a later interview, Imamura stated that this film foreshadowed his 1961 ''

Pigs and Battleships The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus s ...

'', one reason being the "formal dynamism" both films have in common. It was also his first collaboration with cinematographer Shinsaku Himeda, who photographed many of the director's films.

References

External links

* {{Shōhei Imamura 1958 films 1958 comedy films 1958 crime films Japanese comedy films Japanese crime films Japanese black-and-white films Films directed by Shohei Imamura Nikkatsu films 1950s Japanese films