15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
stark vivid potrayal of post-nuclear tension and despair., March 9, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Cruel Story of Youth [VHS] (VHS Tape)
A tale of post-nuclear tension in modern Japan set in the late fifties, Cruel Story of Youth, a rare film that successfully combines beautiful images and an intelligent provacative story of extortion, abortion, modern love and a society struggling to keep up with it all. Director Oshima uses color and sound unlike any other director I have seen. For being such an old film, the vivid juxtapostion of youth with loud rich color and distoted sounds still holds up far better than most films produced today. This contoversial tale about a pair of rebel teen lovers in post-war japan is akin to Rebel Wihout a Cause but with far more guts. This rarely seen film is a must see for anyone interested in great film making.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The early Iron Men. Stark Youth, February 20, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Cruel Story of Youth [VHS] (VHS Tape)
To live is no possible any more. The second film by Oshima, beautiful and untra violent, the film was made in 1960, the portrait of a lost generaton after the atomic bomb, none of the japanese film makers, even Tsukanoto, is able now to remake the immense terror into the atmosphere. One of the best movies of all times.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fire in the Ashtray, May 26, 2008
This review is from: Cruel Story of Youth [VHS] (VHS Tape)
After releasing his debut film Street of Love and Hope in 1959, Oshima would be quick to release three films in quick succession in 1960: Cruel Story of Youth, Burial of the Sun, and Night and Fog in Japan. While such output might make one think that the end results of the films might be a bit shoddy due to the hastiness in their creation, in fact all three of the films are important films not only within the realms of Oshima's filmic work, but for Japanese new wave cinema as a whole.
Oshima began 1960 with a bang when Cruel Story of Youth was released. A genre film, fully embedded within the late 1950s, early 1960s tradition of youth films or Sun Tribe films made popular by directors Masamura Yasuzo and Nakahira Ko, Cruel Story of Youth goes beyond its formulaic groundings to be a film that has strong political underpinnings.
Cruel Story of Youth opens with its female protagonist Makoto, Mako for short, and her friend Yoko attempting to hitch a ride home with a middle-aged man. Things turn sour after Yoko is dropped off when the man tries to take Mako to a hotel. Not having that, the man attempts to use physical violence to get what he wants, but Mako is "saved" by a student named Kiyoshi. Mako feels indebted to Kiyoshi and even begins to feel affection for him, but instead of allowing their relationship to grow, Kiyoshi rapes her after a cruel scene in which submerged Mako is not allowed to get out of the water by Kiyoshi. Instead of not wanting anything to do with Kiyoshi again or reporting the rape to the police, Mako instead falls completely in love with Kiyoshi and soon stays out every night with him much to the chagrin of her elder sister Yuki and her spineless father. Her promiscuity and general attitude get her thrown out of the house, so she moves into the dump Kiyoshi lives in. However, with little money between them, they rely on extortion to support themselves, but how long can they exist in such a way?
One of the most interesting elements concerning Cruel Story of Youth is the offhand way the student movement is mentioned in the film. 1960 marks the year that the United States and Japan were to resign the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan which would not only keep the U.S. military in Japan, but strengthen the Japanese Self Defense Forces. Many students were terrified of the remilitarization of Japan because of the destruction Japan had faced just a few years earlier and because they were worried that Japan would be nothing more than a pawn in America's aggression towards the Soviet Union and mainland China. Through protest they hoped they could make a difference and often looked to South Korea as an example of how protest could truly change things, the removal of Yi Seungman, which Oshima supports by having actual South Korean news footage in the film. However, Mako and Kiyoshi care not for revolution, but instead care for sex and money. Oshima is not criticizing this vapidity, because he too had been part of the student movement in the early 1950s which accomplished little of what it set out to do, so he was bitter like Yoko and her doctor friend. He instead sees it as the sad state of modern Japan where the government and conservative ideals quash hopes of real change.
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