When we first meet Takuro Yamashita (Kōji Yakusho), he is living an average life of mundane domesticity. He clocks off work—something unspecific but relatively mundane—and commutes home on a packed bus. But ten minutes later, Takuro is cycling to a police station drenched in his wife's blood to confess to murdering her. This jolt to seemingly standard settings and characters becomes commonplace in The Eel, with director Shohei Imamura flitting at ease between such dramatically different tones. Despite this impressive tonal handling, Imamura can't successfully juggle the myriad of themes and all the zany characters that come and go throughout The Eel, resulting in a sketchy and uneven film.

After Takuro's confession, The Eel skips forward eight years to his release from prison, during which time he has become the owner of a pet eel. Takuro is withdrawn and quiet with people, but chatty and charismatic with the slippery companion, whom he converses with in his head. Takuro is a man trying to rebuild his life after serving time, but the film's initially interesting reflections on the thorny nature of redemption and guilt wear thin due to the brutality of the murder, the short sentence, and most of all, Takuro's open lack of repentance. Imamura never looks to create sympathy for the main character, but equally seems disinterested in bringing any sort of analysis of societal violence against women into the conversation.

After his release, Takuro opens a small barber shop by the river, and here we meet and get to know the many colourful characters in The Eel: there is Keiko (Misa Shimizu), a young woman who Takuro saves from a suicide attempt and ends up working with him; local fisherman Jukichi (Makoto Satō), who just wants someone to fish with; helpful and kind parole officer Jiro (Fujio Tokita). It is a really great cast full of wonderful, compelling characters and terrific performances, even if Imamura struggles to keep all of them tightly controlled. In particular, Keiko, who becomes romantically involved with Takuro, is a fascinating character with a real depth.

Imamura's experimental style is never far from the surface in The Eel. Dreamscape moments, whilst frustratingly few and far between, are executed very well, such as seeing Takuro submerging into the fishtank after his eel. In general, Shigeru Komatsubara's excellent cinematography gives The Eel a fascinating visual language. There are interesting, subversive camera angles throughout, helping this quirky language to take flight, and that belie the film's other more straightforward elements of domesticity. A lot of The Eel is shot in a very matter-of-fact fashion, so when heavily stylised moments appear, it is striking and memorable.

Imamura's film falters in its latter stages, as this exploration of the life of an ex-con fails to keep all of its interesting elements together in a cohesive way. There are still intriguing musings on repentance and how it can often just be an act, something to make the offender feel better, when the act itself will always have been committed no matter what. But as this sleepy village is punctuated by severe violence and it becomes a backdrop for deceit and tension, Imamura is unable to keep a tight enough grip on the ever-spiralling events.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY FEATURES

High-Definition digital transfer
Uncompressed mono PCM audio

Contains both the Theatrical cut (117 mins.) and rarely seen Director's cut (134 mins.)
Interview with critic Tony Rayns (2024)
Interview with screenwriter Daisuke Tengan (2024)
Visual essay by Tom Mes on the year 1997 as a turning point in Japanese cinema (2024)

Trailer
Newly improved English subtitle translation
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring a newly translated archival interview with Imamura
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings