Pigs and Battleships (豚と軍艦, Buta to gunkan) is a 1961 Japanese satirical comedy film by director Shōhei Imamura.

[1][2] The film depicts black market trades between the U.S. military and the local underworld at Yokosuka.

The film focuses on Kinta, a member of the Himori Yakuza, who has been put in charge of the gang's pork distribution and his girlfriend Haruko, who works at a bar.

Haruko, who had agreed to meet Kinta at the train station, overhears that there is Yakuza infighting downtown.

In the final scene, as she wipes the make-up and lipstick off her face and walks away over an open seashore, an American aircraft carrier arrives in the port and a busload of young Japanese women excitedly rushes off the bus and starts waving to the sailors coming onshore.

[3] Imamura conducted extensive research for the film, spending time with gangsters whom he found to have a unique kind of pride and freedom.

Initially Imamura wanted 1,500 pigs for the climax of the film, but had to make do with 400 due to financial constraints.

[7] In his 1986 review, Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times described the plot as complex but with a simple message, a warning about cultural imperialism, and calls the climax hilarious and unique.

[8] Also in 1986, Vincent Canby of The New York Times too praised the climax and described the movie overall as "refreshingly impolite".

[9] John Berra, writing for Electric Sheep Magazine, described the film as a "biting social satire" and "cruelly entertaining".