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Intentions of Murder

Intentions of Murder (赤い殺意, Akai Satsui, also released as Unholy Desire) is a 1964 Japanese feature film directed by Shohei Imamura and produced and distributed by Nikkatsu. It follows Sadako, a housewife at the bottom of an old-fashioned family system, who is raped by a burglar while her husband is away and gradually transforms into a strong, shrewd woman.1 • 2

Key factDetail
Director / studioShohei Imamura; produced and distributed by Nikkatsu1
ReleaseJune 28, 1964 (Japan)3
Format150 minutes, black and white, 35mm, CinemaScope 2.35:13
WritersScreenplay by Imamura and Keiji Hasebe, from an original story by Shinji Fujiwara1
Lead castMasumi Harukawa (Sadako Takahashi), Ko Nishimura (Riichi), Shigeru Tsuyuguchi (Hiraoka)4
Key crewCinematography Shinsaku Himeda; music Toshiro Mayuzumi; editing Mutsuo Tanji4
Recognition4th place, 1964 Kinema Junpo Top Ten; Blue Ribbon Award Best Supporting Actor (Nishimura); Mainichi Film Contest awards for cinematography, sound recording, and acting5

Spoilers

Story

Sadako (Masumi Harukawa) lives at the bottom of an old family hierarchy, always fearful, married to Riichi (Ko Nishimura), a university employee who neglects her. One night while her husband is away she is raped by a burglar. She tries to kill herself in shock but cannot go through with it, and she then continues a relationship with the intruder, Hiraoka (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi), even as she hates him for what he has done.1 • 3

The thief, uneducated but cunning, misjudges the situation and underestimates the woman's real motives. Sadako tries to poison him, but he dies of a heart attack, perhaps brought on by his repeated assaults. Over the course of the story she transforms from a timid, mistreated wife into a strong and shrewd woman, a change Nikkatsu's synopsis describes as an eruption of the vitality and life force hidden within her.3 • 1

Production

The screenplay was adapted by Imamura with Keiji Hasebe, his collaborator on The Insect Woman (1963), from an original story by Shinji Fujiwara that had been serialized in the magazine Josei Jishin and published by Kobunsha.1 • 6 The original story was set in Tokyo; Imamura moved the setting to Sendai in northeastern Japan.7

The film was shot on location, including the indoor scenes, around Sendai (the station and its clock, Tohoku University, private houses), Matsushima, Furukawa, and Kurikoma-yama on the Fukushima-Yamagata border.1 • 8 Imamura cast Masumi Harukawa, previously a nude dancer at the Nichigeki Music Hall, in the leading role.8

Style and themes

The film is filled with Imamura's characteristic flashbacks and dream sequences, which trace Sadako's psyche and a curse said to run through generations of her family.4 • 5 The National Film Archive retrospective notes describe it as showing a housewife who was only a weakling within her household turning into the stronger figure after the assault by a man posing as a burglar.8

A Japanese program note connects the film to Imamura's recurring concerns with women's vitality and indigenous custom, and adds that it carries an allegory of postwar America and Japan. The same note records that Imamura called it his favorite among his own works.9 Nikkatsu's own synopsis calls it a heavy comedy in full display of the director's style.1

Reception and legacy

The film placed fourth in Kinema Junpo's 1964 Best Ten, behind Woman in the Dunes and Kwaidan, and won Ko Nishimura the 1964 Blue Ribbon Award for Best Supporting Actor. The 1964 Mainichi Film Contest gave it awards for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Recording, Best Leading Actor (Nishimura), and Best Supporting Actress (Yuko Kusunoki), and it received the Japan Film Technology Award for Best Cinematography.5 • 10

The Criterion Collection released the film on DVD as spine #474 within the box set Pigs, Pimps & Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura, from a restored high-definition transfer, with a conversation between Imamura and the critic Tadao Sato and an interview with the critic and historian Tony Rayns among the supplements.4 The film has remained in circulation internationally under two English titles, Intentions of Murder and Unholy Desire, and has been screened in retrospectives including a Bong Joon Ho series at Film at Lincoln Center.2 • 11

References

  1. 赤い殺意 | 映画 | 日活 (Nikkatsu official film page)
  2. 赤い殺意 (1964) Intentions of Murder (Unholy Desire), Musashino Art University Image Library database
  3. JFDB - 赤い殺意 (Akai satsui), UNIJAPAN Japanese Film Database
  4. Intentions of Murder (1964) | The Criterion Collection
  5. Intentions of Murder (赤い殺意), The Japanese Film Festival Australia
  6. 赤い殺意（1964）の解説, 映画の時間 (Jorudan)
  7. smtシネマvol.1 赤い殺意, smtプレゼンテーション
  8. 今村昌平監督作品 Shohei Imamura 第15回(1997年)受賞, National Film Archive of Japan
  9. 赤い殺意 - 作品解説, 新文芸坐
  10. 名作映画紹介（1964年度）キネマ旬報ベストテン
  11. Intentions of Murder, Film at Lincoln Center

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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Intentions of Murder

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