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Audio Format: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital Stereo Video Format: Widescreen 1.85:1 Languages: Japanese Subtitles: English, Chinese (T) Region Code: ALL Year Made: 1979 Running Time: 141
 On January 4, 1964, a convoy of patrol cars traverse a provincial countryside to escort captured criminal Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) to the local police precinct for interrogation. Callous and unremorseful, Enokizu laments his inevitable fate as unfair, citing that his arresting officers will outlive him and continue the pursuit of hedonistic pleasure now denied him. The indignant and self-absorbed Enokizu refuses to answer questions that will aid the police trace his fugitive steps from the first inexplicable murders a few months earlier, on October 18, when Enokizu decided to murder his co-workers, an affable deliveryman named Tanejiro Shibata, and the quiet, unassuming driver, Daihachi Baba. Despite his unwillingness to cooperate, the police investigation has uncovered an accurate, albeit unsettling, account of Enokizu's destructive path. His mistress provides a glimpse into his insatiable sexual appetite and emotional cruelty. His father, Shizuo Enokizu (Rentaro Mikuni), recounts a difficult episode in the summer of 1938 when a Japanese officer humiliated Shizuo, and his seeming cowardice causes a life-long animosity and estrangement with the young and impressionable Iwao. Enokizu's neglected wife Kazuko (Mitsuko Baisho) has left him, but agrees to return at his father's request, only to be accused of having an affair with Shizuo. Driven away by his family and determined to evade the authorities, Enokizu moves into the Asano Inn, a secluded retreat near a cemetery that is managed by a trusting, repressed innkeeper named Haru (Mayumi Ogawa) and her interfering, eccentric mother, Hisano (Nijiko Kiyokawa) who reputedly spies on all the guests. Posing as a benevolent university professor, Enokizu continues his destructive double life of theft, swindles, and senseless murders. Based on police records and a prize-winning book by Ryuzo Saki, VENGEANCE IS MINE chronicles the terrifying crime spree of Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata), a hollow man with no kokoro, which means either "self" or "heart" in Japanese. A dissatisfied public relations employee, Enokizu kills several people for no good reason and manages to evade the police, even though his face is plastered like a celebrity's image across the country. But the film is also about his father and his wife, who have a secret of their own and try to live with the knowledge of the terrible deeds Enokizu has committed.
Director Shohei Imamura created the film after making several documentaries in the early 1970s and becoming dissatisfied with the narrative constraints of the form. Seemingly a straightforward crime drama, VENGEANCE IS MINE incorporates several surrealistic touches, including an ending in which the laws of gravity are suspended. Ogata's performance as Enokizu transformed him into a star in Japan. Mitsuko Baisho's turn as Enokizu's taboo-breaking, long-suffering wife recalls the protean female characters common in Imamura's previous films, including THE INSECT WOMAN.
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