Angel Dust / Enjeru dasuto (1994)

Serial killers in the modern sense of the term have been comparatively rare in Japanese films,* though of course there have been no shortage of killings in the chanbara and yakuza genres. Angel Dust is arguably the first Japanese appearance of the serial killer story such as we now know from endless Euro/American films and …

Attack at Noon / Attack on the Sun / Hakuchu no shugeki (1970)

The year is 1970, the last great burst of student protest in Japan, and Hakuchu no shugeki opens with a journalist interviewing a group of young people about what they really want. The camera, however, soon picks out two twenty-somethings outside the group, Yuri and a young man called Osamu. He follows her in his …

If You Were Young: Rage / Kimi ga wakamono nara (1970)

Two movies about boys sent to Tokyo as part of a government jobs project appeared in 1970, and they could not be more different. Shindo’s Live Today, Die Tomorrow is a bleak study of anomie, while Fukasaku’s If You Were Young: Rage* is wildly energetic and, for most of its length, a quite hopeful movie. …

Live Today, Die Tomorrow / Hadaka no jukyusai (1970)

Based on a real-life case, Kaneto Shindo’s Live Today, Die Tomorrow provides a complex and yet frustrating examination of disaffected youth. Michio graduates from “middle school” and along with all the boys of his class is shipped on a government work program from Hokkaido where there are no jobs to Tokyo. He ends up working …