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