is a 1960 Japanese film directed by

Nagisa Ōshima was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. One of the foremost directors within the Japanese New Wave, his films include '' In the Realm of the Senses'' (1976), a sexually explicit film set in 1930s Japan, and ''Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrenc ...

, starring Yusuke Kawazu and Miyuki Kuwano as teenage delinquents and lovers. It is Ōshima's second feature film and is known for its elements of Japanese '' nuberu bagu''. The film won the 1960

Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Newcomer The Blue Ribbon Award for Best Newcomer is a prize recognizing an outstanding performance by a newcomer in a Japanese film. It is awarded annually by the Association of Tokyo Film Journalists as one of the Blue Ribbon Awards The are film-spe ...

for Ōshima.

Plot

After Makoto Shinjo

hitchhike Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free. Nomads hav ...

s a ride, the driver tries to molest her, but is stopped by Kiyoshi Fuji. He takes her on a date, first to watch the Anpo Protests against the US-Japan Security Treaty, and then later to ride a motorboat on a river, where he rapes her. One day, after trying to wait for him at a bar he frequents, she is targeted by gangsters who prostitute women, but Kiyoshi fights them and they leave them alone in exchange for a payment. The two fall in love and Makoto spends more time with him, causing her to be rebuked by her older sister Yuki, resulting in her deciding to live with him. To make money, the two reconstruct how they met, with Makoto seducing a driver and, when he comes on to her, Kiyoshi extorting him. In one case, a politician named Horio picks her up, but makes her feel happy so she doesn't do it. When Makoto finds out that she is pregnant, Kiyoshi tells her to get an abortion, but when he tries to get her to exploit a driver again, she refuses. Horio picks her up, and when she calls Kiyoshi to ask whether she can stay the night, the line is busy. Kiyoshi asks an older lover he is seeing for a loan and when he gives the money to Makoto, she tells him she slept with Horio. In response he finds Horio and takes money from him, telling him that he was just another target of Makoto's. After the abortion, performed illegally at the clinic of Yuki's former lover Akimoto, the couple is arrested for extortion. After they confess, and with the help of Kiyoshi's older lover, the two are released and Akimoto is arrested. Kiyoshi breaks up with Makoto so they won't hurt each other anymore. The gangsters find Kiyoshi because the motorbike he borrowed from them for the extortions was stolen, resulting in two of them being arrested. They ask him to give them Makoto, but Kiyoshi refuses and is killed. At the same time Makoto is given a ride by a passerby, and when he refuses to let her out, she jumps out of the car to her death.

Cast

Yūsuke Kawazu was a Japanese actor. Life and career Kawazu was born in Tokyo on 12 May 1935. While still a student at Keio University, Kawazu signed with Shochiku in 1958 and debuted in Kinoshita's ''The Eternal Rainbow''. He became one of the studio's lead ...

as Kiyoshi Fujii *

Miyuki Kuwano Miyuki is a feminine Japanese given name. Possible writings Miyuki can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: *, "beautiful fortune" or "beautiful happiness" *, "deep snow" *, "beautiful snow" *, "beautiful reason for history" ...

as Makoto Shinjo *

Yoshiko Kuga is a Japanese people, Japanese actress. Biography and personal life Kuga was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her father, , was a marquis and a member of the House of Peers (Japan), House of Peers. In 1946, while still attending Gakushuin Junior High Sc ...

as Makoto's elder sister Yuki *

Fumio Watanabe (October 31, 1929 – August 4, 2004) was a Japanese actor most known for his work with Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima. He was born in Tokyo and graduated from the University of Tokyo before joining the Shōchiku studio in 1956. S ...

as Akimoto *

Shinji Tanaka is a former Japanese football player and manager. He played for Japan national team. Club career Tanaka was born in Saitama on September 25, 1960. After graduating from Chuo University, he joined Nissan Motors in 1983. The club won 1983 and 1 ...

as Yoshimi Ito, student * Shinjiro Matsuzaki as Terada *

Toshiko Kobayashi was a Japanese actress active from 1949 to 1980. She joined the Nichigeki Dancing Team in 1946. In 1949, she was discovered by film director Keisuke Kinoshita and gave her film debut in his comedy ''Broken Drum''. Under contract with the Shochik ...

as Teruko Shimonishi

Production

Ōshima, who was only 28 at the time, made extensive use of hand-held cameras and location shooting, and the results drew comparisons to the French ''

nouvelle vague French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...

'' filmmakers emerging at around the same time; the film became one of the primary films in the '' Nūberu bāgu''. The use of adolescent criminals as protagonists generated controversy at the time, though the film was also a commercial success, which helped to pave the way for the emergence of a young and adventurous generation of new Japanese filmmakers: in short order, Shohei Imamura, Masahiro Shinoda,

Yasuzo Masumura was a Japanese film director. Biography Masumura was born in Kōfu, Yamanashi. After dropping out of a law course at the University of Tokyo he worked as an assistant director at the Daiei Film studio, later returning to university to study ph ...

Susumu Hani is a Japanese film director, and one of the most prominent representatives of the 1960s Japanese New Wave. Born in Tokyo, he has directed both documentaries and feature films. He won the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award for his firs ...

Hiroshi Teshigahara was a Japanese avant-garde filmmaker and artist from the Japanese New Wave era. He is best known for the 1964 film '' Woman in the Dunes''. He is also known for directing other titles such as '' The Face of Another'' (1966), ''Natsu No Heitai'' ( ...

and others began to attract international attention. In this film, Ōshima was already beginning to explore the themes he would soon become celebrated for: a focus on youth and on 'outsiders', and critical deconstructions of more stereotypical imagery in Japanese cinema.

Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' complimented the colors and cinematography of the film, but was confused by its unexplained political and social references and felt the story was told too distantly, making it dim. Mary Evans of ''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched b ...

'' compared the film to a sociological study which, while mostly succeeding, failed when it moralized. She also found faults in the originality of the story, the violence of the ending, and the portrayal of the gangsters and Makoto, but called the film strong and praised Ōshima's "great feeling for his medium."

James Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at ''The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...

of ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'' described the film as a "candy-colored extravaganza

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

is directed with considerable brio and filled with bold metaphors", but felt that certain aspects were dated such as "powerless men preying upon even weaker women" and its "absence of cynicism and even careerism." The film won the 1960

for Ōshima.

References

Donald Richie Donald Richie (17 April 1924 – 19 February 2013) was an American-born author who wrote about the Japanese people, the culture of Japan, and especially Japanese cinema. Although he considered himself primarily a film historian, Richie also di ...

. ''100 Years Of Japanese Cinema'', 2003, Kodansha. * Joan Mellen. ''The Waves At Genji's Door: Japan Through Its Cinema'', 1975, Pantheon. *

Tadao Sato was a Japanese film critic, theorist and historian. His real name was . Overviews Born in Niigata, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, He published more than a hundred books on film, and was one of Japan's foremost scholars and historians addressin ...

. ''Currents In Japanese Cinema'', 1982, Kodansha.

External links

* * * * {{Nagisa Ōshima 1960 films Films directed by Nagisa Ōshima 1960s Japanese-language films Shochiku films Juvenile delinquency in fiction 1960s Japanese films