The first big splash for director Shohei Imamura came with this provocative, seriocomic dive into the venal squalor of a Japanese pleasure port for American sailors. Set amidst the cheap glitz of the streets and other down-and-out locations such as a hog farm being run on Navy swill, the film rotates among the stories of a small-time gang, a tenacious teenage girl trying to find a way out, and others. Released a year after the U.S.–Japan security pact was renewed, it announced a filmmaker looking to get under the skin of his compatriots.