The title translates roughly as "What the hell?" or "Why not?" and it gives a good idea of the approach Imamura takes to the historical epic-a broad canvas indeed, as viewed from the worm's-eye perspective. The so-called eijanaika riots of 1867 were a brief flash of people-power as the Tokugawa Shogunate gave way to the Meiji Restoration. While the aristocracy fight the deadly sword of Business, the underclasses scurry about in an effort not to be crushed by the weight of the revolution. ("The world is cruel when it's changing," mutters one observer.) It is among the plebes that we find Genji, a would-be farmer returned from the West to find an unrecognizable Japan, and his wife Ine, now cavorting in a libidinal sideshow. Theirs is an irrepressible energy, ribald and criminal, and magical in the Shinto sense (as opposed to the refined Buddhist culture of the aristocracy). The climactic riot-dancing, flower-throwing masses charging across the river separating Edo's rich and poor districts-offers an exhilarating picture of progress, linking sexual energy to the flow of history.