Product Details

• Actors: Hiroyuki Nagato, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Masao Mishima, Tetsurô Tanba, Shirô Osaka
• Directors: Shôhei Imamura
• Writers: Shôhei Imamura, Hisashi Yamauchi, Keiji Hasebe, Shinji Fujiwara
• Producers: Jirô Tomoda, Kano Otsuka, Kano Ôtsuka
• Format: Box set, Black & White, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion
• DVD Release Date: May 19, 2009
• Run Time: 384 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B001TIQT7A
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,175 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Pigs, Pimps, and Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura (The Criterion Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

In the 1960s, Japanese filmmakers responded to a stale studio system by looking for new ways to tell stories; Shohei Imamura was one of the leading figures of this new wave. With the three films in this set—Pigs and Battleships, The Insect Woman, and Intentions of Murder—Imamura truly emerged as an auteur, bringing to his national cinema an anthropological eye and a heretofore unseen taste for the irreverent. Claiming his interests lay in “the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure,” Imamura dotted the decade with earthy, juicy, idiosyncratic films featuring persevering, willful heroines. His remains a unique cinematic voice.

• New, restored high-definition digital transfers • Introductions on all three films by critic Tony Rayns • Conversations between Shohei Imamura and critic Tadao Sato about The Insect Woman and Intentions of Murder • “Imamura, the Free Thinker,” a 1995 episode from the French television series Cinéastes de notre temps • New and improved English subtitle translations • PLUS: Booklets featuring essays by film critics Audie Bock, Dennis Lim, and James Quandt

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Three Imamura films dealing with vice, June 6, 2009

By 

Ted "Ted" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pigs, Pimps, and Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

This set from the Criterion Collection contains three films by the Japanese director Shohei Imamura.

"Pigs and Battleships", titled "Buta to gunkan" in Japan is a depiction of US servicemen in postwar Japan and their patronization of prostitutes.

"The Insect Woman", titled "Nippon konchuki" in Japan, is about the life of a woman in Japan who was abused as a child.

"Intentions of Murder" titled "Akai satsui" in Japan is about a woman who is raped by a burglar and later falls in love with him.

The films are all interesting and I found the first one to be interesting near the ending of the film when several farm trucks release hundreds of pigs into the street.

Each disc has supplements which I found interesting also.

Disc one contains "Imamura: The Freethinker" a 1995 episode of a French TV series, and an interview with film critic Tony Rayns

Disc two contains a discussion of the film "Insect Woman" by Shohei
Imamura and film critic Tadao Sato and an interview about the film by Tony Rayns

Disc three contains the same material as disc two but with reference to the film "Intentions of Murder"