(Akai Hashi Noshitano Nurui Mizu)
Director: Shohei Imamura
Country: Japan
Year: 2001
Runtime: 119 minutes
Japanese with English Subtitles
Awards: Chicago International Film Festival - Silver Hugo
A combo platter of Keatonesque whimsy, improvised mythology and Imamura's own facility with the, shall we say, underbelly of life. Warm Water is a quirky, charming film about rebirth, renewal and a rather raucous cheering for the power of the feminine. Imamura's 20th film is about a 40-ish middle-ager whose wife has left him and who travels to a far-off village in search of a hot golden Buddha. What he finds instead is a woman with a strange case of kleptomania and a propensity for expressing pleasure with a shower of well... On the big screen, it comes across a bit like fireworks in July. (Synopsis by the New York Film Festival.)
Principal Cast: Koji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, Mansaku Fuwa, Kazuo Kitramura
Executive Producer: Masaya Nakamura
Producer: Hisa lino
Screenplay: Motofumi Tomikawa, Daisuke Tengan, Shohei Imamura
Cinematography: Shigeru Komatsubara
Editor: Hajime Okayasu
Director Bio: Shohei Imamura was born in 1926 in Tokyo, Japan. He studied Western history and theatre at Waseda University before working as assistant director for many of Japan's most influential filmmakers. His work has consistently won critical acclaim; in 1997, Cinematheque Ontario published a monograph on Imamura's œuvre and organized a traveling retrospective of his films.
Filmography:
2001 Warm Water under a Red Bridge
1998 Dr. Akagi
1998 Eel, The
1989 Black Rain
1987 Zegen
1982 Ballad of Narayama
1981 Why Not?
1979 Vengeance Is Mine
1975 The Making of a Prostitute
1970 History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess
1968 Deep Desire of Gods
1967 Man Vanishes, A
1989 Pornographers, The
1964 Unholy Desire
1963 Insect, The
1963 Flesh Is Hot, The
1961 Pigs and Battleships
1959 My Second Brother
1958 Endless Desire
1958 Lights of Night
1958 Stolen Desire
Website Link: http://www.cowboypictures.com/warmwater/