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The Pornographers

A former buddhist monk turned erotic filmmaker, Subuyan lives with hairdresser Haru and her two teenage children. Shooting two skin flicks per day, he somehow manages to stay out of the clutches of the yakuza, but real trouble starts when Haru discovers him lusting after her daughter. Shohei Imamura’s landmark satire of postwar affluence was adapted from the internationally renowned novel by Akiyuki Nosaka (Grave of the Fireflies) and brings to vivid life the seedy side of 1960s Japan.

4K UHD & BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 4K restoration from the original camera negative
• 4K UHD and Blu-ray presentation of the feature; world premiere on 4K UHD
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Interview with actor Masaomi Kondo (2026)
• Interview with Inuhiko Yomota on Akiyuki Nosaka (2026)
• Interview with critic Tony Rayns (2026)
• Cinéma de notre temps: Shohei Imamura, The Freethinker - a French TV documentary on Imamura featuring the filmmaker himself discussing his key films (1995, 63 mins)
• Trailer
• Newly improved English subtitle translation
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Jasper Sharp
• Limited edition of 5000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Add three or more of our June releases (The Pornographers, Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, La tête contre les murs, Solo) to cart to receive 10% off. Discount automatically applied at cart. Ends April 8th.

Year: 1966
Country: Japan
Cert: TBC
Format: UHD + Blu-ray
Region: B
RAD179UHDLE
EAN: 5060974683550
Release date: 22/06/26

Awards and Press:

Official Selection - Berlin Film Festival 2026

Best Actor - Shoichi Ozawa - Kinema Junpo Awards

"The visual brilliance of Shohei Imamura’s kinky and satirical black-and-white ‘Scope feature (1966), about a man who makes eight-millimeter porno loops, often suggests the inventiveness of the French New Wave, but not so much the New Wave features of auteurs like Godard and Truffaut as the more illustrative offshoots of that movement, like Sundays and Cybele and Zazie, that applied its dazzling visceral techniques like fresh coats of paint to the material at hand. Often framing his action through windows and fish tanks, punctuating his action with abrupt freeze-frames and fantasy interludes, Imamura attacks the whole question of contemporary eroticism with mordant intelligence, though his style here seems not so much organic as a witty and independent form of commentary." - Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

"A stunningly prescient work... Imamura's sensibility is perfectly suited to such a complex film, which treats its subject matter with both irreverence and depth." - Ed Howard, Only the Cinema