Why Not?

Year: 1981

Runtime: 151 mins

Language: Japanese

Director: Shôhei Imamura

Drama

The film captures the carnivalesque spirit of 1867‑68 Japan, embodied by the chant “Ei ja nai ka” (“Why not?”) as the nation heads toward the Meiji Restoration. It examines the era’s social and political turmoil, culminating in a raucous march on the Tokyo Imperial Palace that turns into a massacre. Imamura highlights ordinary and marginal characters rather than the elite.

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