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Youth of the Beast (The Criterion Collection) (1963)

Yuriko Abe , Kensuke Akashi  |  Unrated |  DVD
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)

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Youth of the Beast (The Criterion Collection) + Branded to Kill (Criterion Collection) + Tokyo Drifter (Criterion Collection)
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Product Details

  • Actors: Yuriko Abe, Kensuke Akashi, Tomio Aoki, Hideaki Esumi, Eiji Go
  • Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
  • Subtitles: English
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: Unrated
  • Studio: Criterion
  • DVD Release Date: January 11, 2005
  • Run Time: 92 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0006HC0FU
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,562 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • Learn more about "Youth of the Beast (The Criterion Collection)" on IMDb

Special Features

  • New essay by film critic Howard Hampton
  • Original theatrical trailer

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Seijun Suzuki's delirious take on pulp-gangster films blows the lid off the genre with mad energy and stylistic excess, twisting a cliché-riddled revenge plot lifted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (which also inspired Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars) into a wild yakuza explosion. The somber black-and-white opening with a single color element--a pink flower lying on the floor--explodes into bright color, blaring music, and random violence. Chipmunk-cheeked Suzuki regular Jo Shishido hides behind dark glasses as the brutal thug Jo, who auditions for the Nomota mob boss by beating up underlings in his own nightclub (we watch the spectacle from behind soundproof glass while a go-go dancer shimmies in the foreground). Quickly establishing himself as the outfit's most ruthless debt collector and enforcer, he visits a rival gang (headquartered in a loft overlooking a movie house) and before long is playing the two against one another. The tangled plot also involves the Nomota honcho's gay brother, a scheme against his sixth wife, and the mysterious Takeshita School of Knitting, all set at a barreling pace and spiced with jagged narrative leaps, avant-garde riffs, and glowing colorscapes that would make Douglas Sirk jealous. In one bizarre scene, a raging wind whips an amber-hued desert into a surreal dust storm just outside the picture window of the Nomota boss's living room window as he blithely flogs his mistress. Suzuki's cinematic madness finds its culmination in Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter. --Sean Axmaker

Product Description

When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo's underworld explodes with violence. Youth of the Beast was a breakthrough for director Seijun Suzuki, introducing the flamboyant colors, hallucinatory images, and striking compositions that would become his trademark. The Criterion Collection proudly presents the film that revitalized the yakuza genre and helped define the inimitable style of a legendary cinematic renegade.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Another Seijun Master Piece April 24, 1999
By A Customer
Format:VHS Tape
I must dissagree with Sean's analysis. While <I>Branded to Kill</I> is certainly a stylistic masterpiece. This film makes <I>Tokyo Drifter</I> seem like a game of Candyland. Ever tongue in cheek, Seijun once again takes a brilliant jab at the Japanese psyche, and wounds once again. With all the camp of a B movie, the cinematic brilliance of an Orson Welles in Hong Kong, Seijun takes on, once again, the crippled self-image of postwar Japan. Replete with a visceral display of corruption, and the seedier underbelly of power that has held sway through out Japan's last several centuries.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Knock-out 60's crime thriller! April 18, 2000
Format:VHS Tape
This is one of the best Japanese crime films of the 1960's, to have seen release in the United States! It is also, arguably, one of the best films by the amazing "outlaw" director, Suzuki Seijun. This was Suzuki-sensei's "breakthrough" film; in as much as it was the first film where he truly let his flamboyant, dizzying, artistic sense come forward. Full of intense, innovative, eye-popping visuals, the film never loses its solid, pulp fiction narrative flow. This is thanks, in part, to a great script based on the novel by Japanese "hard-boiled" master, Oyabu Haruhiko. A great story (though somewhat typical in the Japanese "gangster" tradition), brilliant direction, and wonderful performances (especially by the always great, Shishido Jo)-- all help to make this an outstanding example of the Japanese thriller!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Every cop is a criminal... December 30, 2005
Format:DVD
Suzuki Seijun hasn't made a dull film yet. A contract worker for most of his career, he could take the most cliche-ridden assignment and turn it into gold.

"Youth of the Beast" ("Yaju no Seishun") is no exception. A typical revenge-plot, with the "good cop" posing as "bad cop" to get in good with the gangsters before enacting his vengeance, Suzuki takes it up a notch with innovative camera work and vivid, colorful imagery. By no means the wild ride of something like "Branded to Kill," it is still a quality Yakuza flick, Suzuki-style. There is more than a hint of "Yojimbo" in this film, but the similarities are soon forgotten.

Suzuki's visuals are well-served by tough-guy standby Shishido Jo, famous for his plastic surgery to give himself a more rugged look. Veteran of many of Suzuki's flicks, he brings an authenticity and a grounding-point in the convoluted world of gang-politics. Watanabe Misako brings a nice tenderness to the tough-guy world, as the wife of a detective who was killed.

The Criterion DVD for "Youth of the Beast" is fairly bare-boned, on par with their release for Suzuki's "Fighting Elegy." The picture is lovely, the original soundtrack and dialog are preserved, and it is a film not likely to be offered elsewhere. One could have hoped for more on the DVD release, but it is nice to have it available at all.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Real Movie News Youth of the Beast review
The new Criterion Collection release of Seijun Suzuki's Youth of the Beast is exactly the type of film that has come to be expected from Criterion, and yet the DVD is less... Read more
Published 11 days ago by Ryan
1.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't live up to it's expectations
People think if someone can make a movie and pack it full of style and no story it becomes a classic, well at least Criterion thinks that way. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Joseph
3.0 out of 5 stars Tokyo Gangster
Before I discovered 'Youth of the Beast' in an email newsletter, I knew nothing about the Japanese gangster films of the '60's. Read more
Published on October 30, 2009 by Bryan Byrd
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fast Suzuki!
Certainly faster-paced and more violent than some if director Seijun Suzuki's other outings. Star Jo Shishido (a frequent leading man in Suzuki films) is a man on a mission and... Read more
Published on April 24, 2008 by telecaster62
5.0 out of 5 stars Youth of the Beast
An audacious early outing from cult Japanese director Seijun Suzuki and the Nikkatsu studio, "Beast" is a hip, pulp-gangster flick with a twisty revenge plot involving murder,... Read more
Published on July 2, 2007 by John Farr
5.0 out of 5 stars Style Made Substance
Seijun Suzuki is one of the more polarizing and ambiguous figures in Japanese cinema. Genius? Madman? Something in between? Read more
Published on October 11, 2006 by Planetary Eulogy
3.0 out of 5 stars Youth of the Beast (1963) - Seijun Suzuki
Youth of the Beast is a wild, erratic, over stylized pop gangster film that is hard not to like. Director Seijun Suzuki is a mad painter, and the film is his canvas. Read more
Published on October 7, 2005 by Donny
4.0 out of 5 stars excellent Japanese crime drama
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film

"Youth of the Beast" known in Japan as "Yaju no seishun" is an interesting and well made film about... Read more
Published on April 4, 2005 by Ted
4.0 out of 5 stars Stylish and Beautifully Framed Yakuza Tale - A True Seijun
Seijun Suzuki's films show stylish framing of each scene that brings something unique to the audience each time he calls action. Read more
Published on March 11, 2005 by Kim Anehall
5.0 out of 5 stars Youth of the Beast - Suzuki classic
This is a great film, similar to "Branded to Kill" and "Tokyo Drifter" in many respects. The story is more comprehensible and thus less confusing than the other two, though it... Read more
Published on February 19, 2005 by ZombieTongue
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