Between the making of The Profound Desire ofthe Gods and Vengeance Is Mine, Imamura was engaged in a series of documentaries tracing the fates ofJapanese who were sent to Southeast Asia during the war years and, for various reasons, never returned.Karayuki-san are women who were kidnapped or sacrificed by impoverished families to become prostitutesfor the Japanese military in Southeast Asia. Imamura interviews one such woman, now a toothless, balding73-year-old. She takes him to the Singapore slum where she was brought as the prisoner of a slave tradersome fifty years earlier, and relates with surprising insight the horrendous tale that is her life. Imamuralocates her story in the context of Japan's historical role in Southeast Asia, concluding that she is amongthe individuals sacrificed to the Japanese state: used, and then abandoned. For if a karayuki-san were toattempt repatriation, it would be only to be treated as an outcast in Japanese society, especially by thosevery family members whose livelihood at one time depended on her sale. Therefore, many karayuki-sanprefer the poverty of exile to the shame of repatriation.