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The Eel [DVD]

Kji Yakusho (Actor), Misa Shimizu (Actor), Shohei Imamura (Director, Writer) Rated:
Unrated
Format: DVD
4.1 out of 5 stars 26 ratings
IMDb7.3/10.0
Additional DVD options Edition Discs
Price
New from Used from
DVD
March 12, 2012 		—
1
$157.00
$157.00 $91.64
DVD
August 28, 2001 		—
1
—
— $25.98
Format NTSC, Subtitled, DVD, Full Screen, Color, Widescreen
Contributor Akira Emoto, Daisuke Tengan, Sabu Kawahara, Sh Aikawa, Akira Yoshimura, Ken Kobayashi, Fujio Tokita, Chiho Terada, Misa Shimizu, Shohei Imamura, Etsuko Ichihara, Tomorowo Taguchi, Shinsh Nakamaru, Kji Yakusho, Mitsuko Baisho, Motofumi Tomikawa See more
Language Japanese
Runtime 1 hour and 57 minutes
Color Color

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Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches; 4 ounces
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Shohei Imamura
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC, Subtitled, DVD, Full Screen, Color, Widescreen
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 57 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ August 28, 2001
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Kji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, Akira Emoto, Fujio Tokita
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
  • Language ‏ : ‎ Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0)
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ New Yorker Video
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00005NFY5
  • Writers ‏ : ‎ Akira Yoshimura, Daisuke Tengan, Motofumi Tomikawa, Shohei Imamura
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 26 ratings

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
26 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Blue Firecat
    5.0 out of 5 stars Magical
    Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    A difficult movie to watch, but important to understanding human nature
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  • S. Glick
    4.0 out of 5 stars Shôhei Imamura's fine film about Takuro Yamashita (Kôji Yakusho) a man who ...
    Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Shôhei Imamura's fine film about Takuro Yamashita (Kôji Yakusho) a man who kills his wife after finding her cheating on him with another man and the woman he becomes involved with after he's released from prison and opens a barber shop.
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  • Paul Morel
    5.0 out of 5 stars A necessary film for anyone interested in serious cinema..
    Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2018
    As usual, Imamura directs with a steel hand, and this is no exception. Breathtaking and monumental...
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  • Shaun M.
    4.0 out of 5 stars Love conquers all!
    Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2006
    One of my favorite actors is K?ji Yakusho. He has a way of melting into his characters and becoming them in a very basic, natural manner. I hadn't realized he was in Unagi, (or had forgotten), so I was pleasantly surprised to witness another brilliant yet subdued performance on his part. Brilliant in 1997's Cure, acclaimed for his role in 1999's Charisma, 2000's K?rei, his brief appearance in 2001's horror masterpiece Kairo, a Jeremy Irons-like duplicitous role in 2003's Doppelg?nger, his resume is one of the best. This was the first non-horror film I've seen of his. In Unagi, he plays Takuro, a white-collar salaryman who works in the city and resides in a small countryside village with his beautiful wife named Emiko. He has a long commute to and from his job and a seemingly dull or uneventful job (although we only get a minimal glimpse of it at the very beginning of the film). On a regular basis, he joins friends, acquaintances and perhaps colleagues to fish the sea on a pier outside of the close-knit village.

    Takuro squeezes onto the same train everyday, probably in the same car... well, you get the idea of a regimented lifestyle, but one Takuro seems to willingly get by with. One particular day on the trip home, he pulls an anonymous note from his pocket and reads that his wife has been having an affair, usually whilst he is fishing. I wondered why the movie didn't set the affair to coincide with him being at work, but it makes more sense when you see it. He makes his walk down the narrow road to his home and greets his smiling wife. He ditches his suit , accepts a prepared, boxed dinner (lovingly wrapped) and leaves per usual for much fishing. It's eery to hear Emiko ask "How long will you be gone?" as a viewer because we obviously know what's happening. Takuro doesn't miss a beat and responds that he'll 'be gone as long as usual'. Takuro spends a shorter time at the pier tan usual and bids the others farewell. On the way, he reminisces about the anonymous note; it also mentions what type and color the man arrived in. When he arrives to his home, he does find a white sedan parked and half-covered with brush next to the house. He sneaks around the house to a window and peeks thru the window. What follows is the reason he's sent to prison, where (at another unknown point) he catches and begins to confide in an eel (he's lost all trust in people) which he keeps in a prison fountain with help from a few guards. The guards allow him to keep the eel when his parole officer assumes custody of Takuro upon his release. Takuro begins to reestablish himself by purchasing a rundown barber shop in a tiny coastal town full of interesting characters and soon a mysterious woman enters the town. She brings a mix of disruption, controversy and maybe hope to the residents of the small coastal town and Takuro himself.

    To Unagi's benefit (or not), the story is told with an array of styles. It doesn't stray form it's intention to take Takuros plight seriously, but at times, it seemed to go off on a tangent concerning other characters. I believe this was detrimental to bringing Takuro's redemption to fruition. I'm not saying that developing the other characters is a mistake, I'm just saying that in this case it worked against a complete resolution. Hell, for all I know, that could of been the objective all along; for the ending to remain open-ended and unresolved fully. With characters like Akira Emoto's character Tamotsu (Maborosi, Doppelg?nger) as Takuro's level-headed, wise, father figure-type new friend, could conceivably live on past the ending. The film as a whole has that sort of natural feel to it and an uncanny sense of taking place in two different eras. Add a touch of hilarity now and then to ease the dramatic air and this turns out to be a surprisingly solid movie.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Westley
    3.0 out of 5 stars Morality slippery as an eel
    Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2008
    Esteemed Japanese actor Kôji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?") stars in "The Eel." Yakusho is a happily married business who suddenly begins receiving letters indicating that his wife is having an affair while he is away on fishing trips. So Yakusho returns home early from one of these fishing trips, catches his wife in the act, and brutally stabs her to death. After serving 8 years in prison, Yakusho attempts to rebuild his life as a barber in a small town with only his pet eel that he acquired in prison as a companion. He explains that he trusts the eel, as it cannot betray him. When he stumbles across a woman trying to kill herself, his suspiciousness gets the better of him; however, he eventually helps her and, in the process, changes his life.

    I had heard great things about "The Eel" and knew that it had received the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. I was expecting a film reflective perhaps even existential in tone befitting its allegorical approach. "The Eel," though, is much lighter, verging on romantic comedy at times; some scenes toward the end even border on slapstick. I found the tone confusing and somewhat inappropriate for the subject matter. To its credit, "The Eel" attempts to address some big issues - betrayal, redemption, guilt - and it does so in an ambiguous way that could have really illustrated the slippery nature of morality. Unfortunately, the script came across as pretty shallow and unreflective to me, which prevented it from saying anything new.

    In the end, I'm not sure whether the main character has earned redemption. Perhaps that was the filmmaker's intention, and not all protagonists have to earn redemption to make a movie worthwhile, but I found it unsatisfying. Finally, the music score was one of the most intrusive I've encountered in recent years and undercut the movie's themes. I was hoping for a movie that shed some new light on guilt and redemption, but I was pretty disappointed.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Hiram Gòmez Pardo Venezuela
    5.0 out of 5 stars Blame and redemption!
    Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2005
    The brutal opening sequence schocks even the most indifferentt of the viewers.

    This moral defeat affects him seriously and even he is sent to prison by this double crime, he develops a profound and visible transformation in his affective relations.

    He will establish a peculiar relation with this eel that will work out as a cathartic device, till the love comes for him to rescue.

    Mature and very original film that meant another triumph in Cannes for this wunderkid and loved film maker, who shares with Angelopoulus a very special affection in Europe.

    It's time for you to get close to the world of this giant japanese director who has proved his enormous talent with The Ballad of Narayama, Black Rain, Eijanaika and this one.

    A favorite and personal Japanese films of that decade.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • John Farr
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Eel
    Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2007
    Though Imamura's engaging psychodrama of regret and sexual repression opens on an overheated and violent act, it soon cools to a slow burn, as the friendship between two troubled people blossoms tenuously before taking an unexpected turn. Yakusho, an expert at playing stone-faced, emotionally distant protagonists, is both sympathetic and impossible to fathom. Poising the action between icy restraint and simmering catharsis, Imamura--who indulges himself in a couple of surreal vignettes--makes his "Eel" a reflecting pool for modern malaise.
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Mr Steven N Eperjesi
    4.0 out of 5 stars A man's journey back
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 19, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    A man's crime of passion and rehabilitation is engagingly portrayed as he regains trust in himself and his new life when a young woman rocks his boat.
    The parallel life of an eel (his confidant) with it's journey in the wild adds the quirky japanese moral undertone.

    Like a zen tea ceremony where everything has to drop into place for true serenity this feel good film similar to Tampopo where the struggle is to find happiness through the perfect bowl of noodles.
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  • Allan
    2.0 out of 5 stars Fades After Reasonable Start
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    This film sounded quite interesting - man kills unfaithful wife, serves his time, feels alienated, prefers to avoid people. So a reasonable start, but it turns into a slow lacklustre run-of-the-mill drama which descends into farce during a punch-up at the barber's shop. The uninspired script gives Koji Yakusho and the lovely Misa Shimizu very little to get their teeth into. It's watchable but nothing much happens. And the eel? He talks to his pet eel a couple of times. And that's it really. Maybe two and a half stars.
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  • Guttenor
    2.0 out of 5 stars Two Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Great film. Bad quality DVD release by Artificial eye.
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