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The Eel

 The Eel
type
TVTItem
 The Eel
label
The Eel
 The Eel
page
TheEel
 The Eel
comment
Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })The Eel ("Unagi") is a 1997 film directed by Shohei Imamura.The story opens in 1988. Takuro is an office worker somewhere in Chiba Province (basically a part of the Tokyo suburbs). He leaves work one day and gets on the train, where he reads a letter. The letter tells him that his wife is cheating on him. It further informs him that Takuro's wife always makes a date with her lover when Takuro, a fisherman, goes off on his midnight fishing trips.So Takuro puts it to the test. He tells his wife he's going fishing. She packs him a lunch, and he leaves, but he returns early. He finds his wife enthusiastically bonking a man. Without a word, he picks up a big knife and brutally stabs her to death. Then he bikes to the police station, still wearing his blood-drenched clothes, and turns himself in.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Cut forward eight years. After a ludicrously short sentence Takuro is out on parole. He leaves carrying in a bucket the pet eel that he kept behind bars. His parole officer, Jiro, escorts him to the parole officer's home town, a little riverfront fishing village in the middle of nowhere. Takuro learned how to cut hair while in prison, and Jiro is going to set Takuro up in an abandoned barbershop.Takuro opens shop, and makes the acquaintance of the locals, although the only thing that he really talks to is the eel. One day Takuro is out by the riverside looking to find food for his eel, when he sees an unconscious young woman lying in the grass. It seems the woman, a lovely young lady named Keiko who vaguely resembles Takuro's wife, tried to kill herself by an overdose of pills.Takuro calls for help and Keiko is saved. She soon asks for and gets a job in Takuro's barbershop as a hairdresser/assistant. Will love bloom? Can Takuro get past the horrible crime he committed?Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_3'); })
 The Eel
fetched
2020-11-13T06:32:38Z
 The Eel
parsed
2020-11-13T06:32:38Z
 The Eel
processingComment
Dropped link to CallBack: Not a Feature - ITEM
 The Eel
processingComment
Dropped link to Fanservice: Not a Feature - IGNORE
 The Eel
isPartOf
DBTropes
 The Eel / int_2c9e262
type
Catapult Nightmare
 The Eel / int_2c9e262
comment
Catapult Nightmare: Taken to the extreme in a scene where Takuro has a nightmare of an eel wriggling on a spear (his buddy took him spear-fishing for eels). Takuro doesn't just bolt up, he thrashes around until he falls out of bed.
 The Eel / int_2c9e262
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1.0
 The Eel / int_2c9e262
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1.0
 The Eel
hasFeature
The Eel / int_2c9e262
 The Eel / int_3f267047
type
Voiceover Letter
 The Eel / int_3f267047
comment
Voiceover Letter: The letter in the opening scene, informing Takuro of his wife's adultery, is presented in this way. Curiously, it's with a woman's voice.
 The Eel / int_3f267047
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1.0
 The Eel / int_3f267047
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1.0
 The Eel
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The Eel / int_3f267047
 The Eel / int_53c9fc92
type
Flashback
 The Eel / int_53c9fc92
comment
Flashback: Several sketch out Keiko's backstory. A couple introduce her mother, who is both very vivacious and very mentally ill.
 The Eel / int_53c9fc92
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 The Eel / int_53c9fc92
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_53c9fc92
 The Eel / int_5fcb9ad1
type
Time Skip
 The Eel / int_5fcb9ad1
comment
Time Skip: Eight years between the opening murder scene and Takuro getting out of jail.
 The Eel / int_5fcb9ad1
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1.0
 The Eel / int_5fcb9ad1
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_5fcb9ad1
 The Eel / int_7a848962
type
Prison Changes People
 The Eel / int_7a848962
comment
Prison Changes People: When Jiro leads Takuro out of jail, Takuro marches behind them military-style. Jiro has to make him walk alongside instead of march from behind.
 The Eel / int_7a848962
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1.0
 The Eel / int_7a848962
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_7a848962
 The Eel / int_80b5924
type
Left Hanging
 The Eel / int_80b5924
comment
Left Hanging: Who wrote the note about the wife's adultery? The garbage man suggests that there was no note and Takuro hallucinated it, but the film is unclear.
 The Eel / int_80b5924
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1.0
 The Eel / int_80b5924
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_80b5924
 The Eel / int_a6ec25e4
type
Protection Racket
 The Eel / int_a6ec25e4
comment
Protection Racket: A two-bit hoodlum comes to Takuro's newly opened barbershop, says that it needs protection, and says that Takuro can pay him on a schedule. Amusingly, Takuro just stares at him blankly, and the hoodlum gives up.
 The Eel / int_a6ec25e4
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The Eel / int_a6ec25e4
 The Eel / int_bbec7823
type
Bedroom Adultery Scene
 The Eel / int_bbec7823
comment
Bedroom Adultery Scene: Played as dark as this trope can get. Takuro comes home, catches his wife in bed with another man, and kills her.
 The Eel / int_bbec7823
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1.0
 The Eel / int_bbec7823
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_bbec7823
 The Eel / int_bcac7f63
type
Distant Prologue
 The Eel / int_bcac7f63
comment
Distant Prologue: Eight years between the opening murder scene, which takes up the first five minutes of the movie, and the main story.
 The Eel / int_bcac7f63
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1.0
 The Eel / int_bcac7f63
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_bcac7f63
 The Eel / int_c660bc15
type
Fan Disservice
 The Eel / int_c660bc15
comment
Fan Disservice: Immediately afterwards, when he stabs her to death.
 The Eel / int_c660bc15
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1.0
 The Eel / int_c660bc15
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_c660bc15
 The Eel / int_c8d6d621
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I Will Wait for You
 The Eel / int_c8d6d621
comment
I Will Wait for You: The movie ends with Takuro being taken away for a parole hearing after slashing Eiji's face; he's likely to go back to jail for a year. Keiko, who has been revealed to be four months pregnant, says that she and the baby will wait for him.
 The Eel / int_c8d6d621
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_c8d6d621
 The Eel / int_cffd35ee
type
Crop Circles
 The Eel / int_cffd35ee
comment
Crop Circles: Invoked. Takuro has a gentle but weird neighbor named Masaski who wants to attract UFOs to come visit. So he makes his own crop circle in the grass, then livens it up with a bunch of neon lights to make a sort of beacon (he borrows Takuro's barber pole).
 The Eel / int_cffd35ee
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_cffd35ee
 The Eel / int_dc0d80ee
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High-Pressure Blood
 The Eel / int_dc0d80ee
comment
High-Pressure Blood: When Takuro stabs his wife to death, the blood spurts at fire hose pressure.
 The Eel / int_dc0d80ee
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1.0
 The Eel / int_dc0d80ee
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_dc0d80ee
 The Eel / int_dd234c2f
type
Hallucinations
 The Eel / int_dd234c2f
comment
Hallucinations: Near the end the garbage man pops up out of nowhere, in the middle of the river. He tells Takuro that there never was a letter, that he hallucinated it. That may or may not be true, but the garbage man definitely is a hallucination, as he disappears from the scene immediately after.
 The Eel / int_dd234c2f
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1.0
 The Eel / int_dd234c2f
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_dd234c2f
 The Eel / int_e43130c1
type
Interrupted Intimacy
 The Eel / int_e43130c1
comment
Interrupted Intimacy: The sex between Takuro's wife and her lover is interrupted abruptly when Takuro charges in, wielding a knife, and kills her.
 The Eel / int_e43130c1
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1.0
 The Eel / int_e43130c1
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 The Eel
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The Eel / int_e43130c1
 The Eel / int_fe0330fb
type
Brick Joke
 The Eel / int_fe0330fb
comment
Brick Joke: Keiko's mother is dancing the flamenco in a scene where she comes on inappropriately to Keiko's boyfriend Eiji, in the first scene that indicates that Keiko's mom isn't all right. Later, when Keiko goes to the asylum to pick her mom up, her mom has all the other mental patients dancing the flamenco.
 The Eel / int_fe0330fb
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The Eel / int_fe0330fb
 The Eel / int_name
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The Eel

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Bedroom Adultery Scene
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 Films of 1995–1999
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 Interrupted Intimacy
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 Japanese Films
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