Astroboy13, regarding "The Eel", are you referring to the barber shop fight with the garbage man, or the ending with the mobsters?  I also mostly enjoyed the film until the end, when it seemed to go off on a Keystone Kops tangent.  

At least, Imamura seems to have softened on his misanthropy and cynicism a bit.  I still don't quite know what to make of the brutality of "The Ballad of Narayama", "The Insect Woman", or "Vengeance is Mine".  But at least, with "The Eel" and "Dr. Akagi", he seems to be a lot moe sympathetic (aside from opening brutality of "The Eel").

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