Eijanaika ("Why not") is a 1981 film from Japan directed by Shohei Imamura.
It is set at the very end of the Jidaigeki era, namely 1867. The Meiji Restoration is on the way but the characters, all lowlifes, pimps, whores and crooks in East Ryogoku, one of the scummier neighborhoods of Edo (aka Tokyo) don't know that. The story begins with Genji, the protagonist, coming back to Japan after six years in America, he having been rescued by an American ship after his ship sank. Genji picked up English during his time in the United States and hopes to take his wife, Ine, back to America where they can buy land to farm, as opposed to Japan where feudal lords own the land.
He makes it back home only to discover that his father-in-law sold Ine into sex slavery. It was only a three-year term as a prostitute, but when Genji finds Ine again, she is working a bizarre one-woman sex show in which she spreads her legs for customers and they blow streamers at her private parts. It's degrading, but it's a living, and Ine doesn't relish either going to America or living a farmer's life.
Other characters in the sprawling story include Itoman, who befriends Genji, and is on his own quest for revenge. Also in the story is Furukawa, once a samurai for the shogunate, now left adrift as the age of the samurai is passing. All this is taking place in the slums of Edo, a place that is getting out of control as the shogunate collapses, beset by occasional riots where desperate poor people raid the merchants for money, food, and clothing. It turns out that the riots are egged on by forces loyal to the emperor—but will the rioting backfire on them?
Tropes:
- Bathtub Scene: Combined with Fanservice Extra. Kinzo and Katsuguro are relaxing in a hot tub while they chat about business. Finally the chat is over, Katsuguro claps his hands, and three attractive naked ladies climb into the tub with them.
- Cat Fight: Ine confronts another sex worker who is stealing her "Blow Girl" act. It turns into a hair-pulling cat fight which in theory might be fanservice-y since both the women are good looking and the other one is topless, but given the grim setting and the desperate characters it comes off as sad.
- Central Theme: The wrenching changes going on in Japanese society, with the end of the shogunate and the impending Meiji Restoration being the most obvious. It's barely a decade after Commodore Perry forcibly opened Japan to the West, and western influences are springing up everywhere. Ine briefly works at a whorehouse that caters to Americans, the shogun's forces buy surplus American rifles used in the American Civil War, and a restaurant that offers Western cuisine has sprung up in the neighborhood. Furukawa the samurai muses gloomily about how people like him are useless now, saying "The world will change, but I can't."
- Downer Ending: Genji is killed in the climactic riot, along with a bunch of other people after the soldiers open fire. Furukawa has killed himself, joined in suicide by his girlfriend, as he faced arrest for the murder of Hara. Itoman is off for parts unknown, his vengeance completed. Ine is left a lonely widow who will probably have to go back to sex work.
- Eye Pop: A rare live-action version. A sideshow act shows a man who seems to have the ability to project his eyeballs out of his head. Indeed he can project his eye stalks out so far that a bag can be hung on them.
- The Freakshow: The seamy East Ryogoku neighborhood is filled with bizarre sideshow attractions as if a circus has taken up permanent residence. One act shows a woman who appears to be able to extend her neck about six feet. Another features a man who can pop his eyes several inches out of his face.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Furukawa's assassination of Hara. The sword goes clean through Hara's chest and out his back, poking through the back of his kimono.
- Indentured Servitude: The sex slavery that Ine was sold into was temporary; her father says "her term should be up by now," and indeed Genji discovers that Ine is working for herself, albeit in a pervy sex show. Women are held in debt bondage in the usual way but they can get out. Genji buys the freedom of one indentured servant and is outraged to learn that her father just sold her right back.
- It Will Never Catch On: Hana the shogunate reformer snorts with derision at the notion that the time of the samurai and the shogunate might be over, saying "a land of peasants and merchants only" would never work. It wound up working out quite well (until Japan blundered into war 70-odd years later anyway).
- Just Following Orders: Ijuin's only defense when a sword-wielding Itoman reminds Ijuin of how Ijuin killed Itoman's whole family. It doesn't work.
- Lady Drunk: Ine says that she sells her art, not her body (although apparently she was still whoring right up until Genji arrived), and that it's better than living on the edge of starvation as a farmer. But she's also a drunk who sometimes gets so intoxicated that she falls down.Genji: You drink a lot, don't you?
- Mooning: Some of the ladies in the rioting crowd temporarily disarm the soldiers, and lessen the tension, by mooning them and then peeing at them.
- Percussive Pickpocket: How Genji loses his money almost as soon as he gets to the city. When he sees his pickpocket again, he chases him and gets the money back.
- Red Light District: East Ryogoku, where prostitutes work in bamboo cages, the streets are lined with sex shows and freak shows, women are literally sold, and hapless men are press-ganged into the shogun's army.
- Right Through the Wall: Roku, who lives in the wooden house that shares a wall with Ine's and who has a crush on Ine, wakes up one morning and complains to the neighbors about how all the sex that Ine and a returned Genji were having kept him awake.
- Stupid Crooks: Genji and his buddies commit a robbery, dragging out a whole safe. Unfortunately they didn't think about how their rickety little boat isn't suited to transport a heavy iron safe, especially when they're being chased. The safe goes plunging into the river. There's a Running Gag after that in which the gang is occasionally setting off depth charges in the river and struggling to retrieve stuff from the safe.
- Suicide Pact: Furukawa and his blind girlfriend Yoshino have one. When the cops close in and it's clear there's no escape, Furukawa kills her and then himself.
- Title Drop: The rampaging mob storming through the neighborhood at the climax of the film sings a song, about all the crazy things that are happening in Japan (men can't get it up, women are looking for sex, no one knows who will win the civil war), with each verse ending with a cheer of "Eijanaika!" ("Why not," or "What the hell?")
- Too Important to Walk: Katsuguro, one of the more important crime bosses in the neighborhood, is carried around on a palanquin.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The "Eijanaka" riot/carnival/party that climaxes the film was a real thing
that happened all over Japan in this era, as the shogunate was crumbling and order was breaking down. - You Can't Go Home Again: Genji makes it back to his rural home to find that his old house is now a crumbling ruin and his wife was sold into sex slavery.
- You Killed My Father: Before Itoman kills Ijuin he makes sure to tell him why, reminding Ijuin that Ijuin and his shogunate goons killed Itoman's entire family back on the Ryukus.
