DVDs in Review

Vengeance is Mine (Shôhei Imamura, 1979)

Title: Vengeance is Mine (Shôhei Imamura, 1979)

Release date: August 2 2010

Certificate: 18

Format: Blu-ray

RRP: £22.99

Rating: 4/5

Reviewed by Dave Lancaster

'Vengeance is Mine' could be compared to Terrence Malick's 'Badlands' or Richard Brooks' 'In Cold Blood', which certainly isn't poor praise. This tells the true story of Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) whose murderous trek across Japan sparked a 78-day nationwide manhunt.

It mixes the passive mysticism of Malick's wonderfully shot colour slow rampage through Americana with the cold, realism of the documentary-style 'In Cold Blood' to hover someplace in between. Also present is another stone-faced antagonist. There aren't clear cut reasons for his actions, nor does he get any clear reward from them; he is simply remote. And chilling.

He is the type of guy whose face could be pasted on every lamp post and news report but if you bumped into him the street you wouldn't notice. He integrates himself into society posing as both a lawyer and a professor, with solid conviction.

The reason behind this film's success is the key pairing of star Ken Ogata as the killer and director Shôhei Imamura, whose compositions fill the screen with details for your eyes to glaze over. The murders are still, barely cutting. No cheap thrills or camera trickery mean that you can relate better to the story but its 140 minute runtime can feel testing.

When a man calmly kills and the person (the director) watching him remains still and you (the audience) isn't given a break from this voyeurism, it has a far deeper effect than frantic cuts which the victim may associate with. Here we associate with the killer. The victim is just a means to an end.