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“Masterpiece. . . . A delirious exercise in sex, crime and weirdness . . . with an appalling, visionary beauty” (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice ). Pantheon Imamura, EIJANAIKA quickly earned a reputation as a classic of postwar Japanese cinema. Sprawling, frenzied, and very beautiful - the loving recreations of Edo period settings are among the film's many pleasures - EIJANAIKA strains its widescreen frame with choreographed tumult that threatens to burst its borders. A carnival huckster on the payroll of both the Emperor's forces and the Shogun dynasty, and his backwoods girlfriend (star of a show called “Tickle the Goddess” ) are swept up in the lower-class riots that plunged Japan into the twentieth century. Dave Kehr has called the final explosion of pent-up energy “an irresistibly giddy, rushing moment. . . . It is the energy of [all previous Imamura characters] brought together and unleashed in its full anarchic fury. It is horrible and hopeful, devastating and invigorating.” “This film is all about spying, so it is quite voyeuristic” (Imamura).
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