, also known as ''Punishment Island,'' is a 1966 Japanese

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Masahiro Shinoda was a Japanese film director, whose career spanned over four decades and covered a wide range of genres and styles. He was one of the central figures of the Japanese New Wave during the 1960s and 1970s. He directed films for Shochiku Studio fro ...

. The screenplay by Shintarō Ishihara was based on the novel ''Ryujinjima ni nite'' by Taijun Takeda. The film probes deep into the damaging effects of the Japanese Imperial system on individuals. It concerns the story of a young man who travels to an island to punish the man who had murdered his family and brutalized him twenty years prior, but he develops feelings for the man's daughter which tests his resolve to carry out his revenge. The film makes extensive use of flashbacks, cutting forward and backwards in a free-form multilayered structure, to illustrate how the past casts a shadow over the present.

Plot

A young man in the guise of a salesman travels to an island and asks the ship’s captain, Nomoto, for lodging. This man's name is Saburo, and he was on the island 20 years prior. Saburo's father, Genichiro Nishihara, had been an anarchist, and as a result, Saburo's parents and brother were brutally murdered by Sergeant Otake, a military police officer. The military sent the young Saburo to the island (''

Shimanagashi ''Shimanagashi'' () is a form of punishment where people are banished to small islands. It was created during the feudal period in Japan, where political offenders were often sent away and confined on the island of Sado in the Sea of Japan. One ...

)'' to cover up this atrocity. Saburo didn't know that Otake had also been sent to the same island. Otake, who kept cattle and goats in the island, was given charge of reforming juvenile delinquents and continued to brutalize Saburo. Saburo tried to escape several times, but each time he was beaten to the point of bleeding. His companion Matsui betrayed Saburo, and his teacher Kuroki was a sympathetic but fearful bystander. One day, Saburo is thrown into the sea by Otake and left for dead. Saburo, who was rescued by a fisherman, has reappeared on the island 20 years later. Matsui is now the president of a construction company. A young woman, Aya, is nearly attacked by three men but Saburo saves her. Aya is Otake's daughter and had met Saburo when she was a little girl. Saburo has feelings for Aya, which complicates his revenge plans.

Themes & Reception

The film explores the effects of violence on both the body and the character’s psyche. Scenes of men beating children and one another are numerous, attacks are carried out with crutches, whips, and live eels, and Shinoda is keen to show this brutality in close ups. Bruised and bloodied bodies contrast sharply with the physical beauty of the island’s greenery and the surrounding ocean. Shinoda also emphasizes violent physicality by muting the soundtrack during some of the most violent moments. Film scholar Albert Johnson praised the film as one of the best Japanese films of 1966. He praised the evocativeness and beauty of the nature photography and wrote that it was "a dispassionate, moving statement on the nature of evil and the hopelessness of vengeful satisfaction.

Cast

* Akira Nitta as Saburo *

Shima Iwashita is a Japanese stage and film actress who has appeared in films of Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and most frequently of Masahiro Shinoda, her husband. She is best known for starring in the '' Yakuza Wives'' series of yakuza ...

as Aya *

Rentarō Mikuni was a Japanese actor, writer and director, who starred in films of Keisuke Kinoshita, Mikio Naruse, Tadashi Imai, Shōhei Imamura, Tomu Uchida and many others. He received numerous prizes for his performances and was awarded the Jury Prize at t ...

as Otake * Kei Satō as Matsui * Hosei Komatsu as Tsuneki *

Taiji Tonoyama was a Japanese character actor who made many appearances in films and on television from 1939 to 1989. He was a close friend of Kaneto Shindo and one of his regular cast members. He was also an essayist. In 1950 he helped form the film company ...

as boatman *

Kinzō Shin was a Japanese stage and film actor. Between the early 1930s and late 1980s, he appeared in over 80 films by directors such as Masaki Kobayashi, Kon Ichikawa, Kaneto Shindō, Tadashi Imai and Yasuzō Masumura. Biography Kinzō Shin was born i ...

as Kuroki

References

External links

* 1966 drama films Japanese drama films Shintaro Ishihara 1960s Japanese films Films scored by Toru Takemitsu Films based on Japanese novels {{1960s-Japan-film-stub