Directed by:
Nagisa ŌshimaScreenplay:
Nagisa ŌshimaCinematography:
Takashi KawamataComposer:
Riichirô ManabeCast:
Miyuki Kuwano, 渡辺文雄, 佐藤慶, Yoshiko Kuga, 森川信, Jun Hamamura, 山茶花究, Yûsuke Kawazu, Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi, Asao SanoVOD (1)
Plots(1)
Nagisa Oshima's groundbreaking film opens with young, attractive Mako and her friend hitching a ride from an old man. After her friend leaves, the man tries to rape her, and she is saved only by the handsome Kiyoshi. Later, against the background of the tumultuous 1960 U.S./Japan Security Treaty demonstrations, Kiyoshi and Mako walk along a grungy seaside lumberyard while talking about sex. He attempts to kiss her, she slaps him, and he throws her in the water. She cries out that she can't swim. When she continues to refuse his advances, he steps on her fingers as she clings to a log. Kiyoshi then saves Mako from a trio of seedy pimps looking to impress her into working for them, but after rescuing her, he forces himself on her again. With this unlikely beginning, Kiyoshi and Mako form a passionate though doomed romance. Soon she stops going to school and moves into his flea-ridden dive of an apartment. Utterly disillusioned with all trappings of societal convention, the two get cash by blackmailing businessmen and by shaking down Kiyoshi's middle-aged sugarmama. Tension with this Bonnie and Clyde duo builds after Mako has an abortion in a run down clinic, performed by an alcoholic doctor. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Miyuki Kuwano
Japan
Best movies:
Red Beard (1965)
Three Outlaw Samurai (1964)
Equinox Flower (1958)
渡辺文雄
Japan
Best movies:
Equinox Flower (1958)
Late Autumn (1960)
Silence Has No Wings (1966)
佐藤慶
Japan
Best movies:
Zatoichi's Vengeance (1966)
The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979)
Bushido, Samurai Saga (1963)
Yoshiko Kuga
Japan
Best movies:
Equinox Flower (1958)
Good Morning (1959)
Drunken Angel (1948)
森川信
Japan
Best movies:
Cruel Story of Youth (1960)
Jun Hamamura
Japan
Best movies:
Japan's Longest Day (1967)
Zatoichi's Vengeance (1966)
High and Low (1963)
山茶花究
Japan
Best movies:
High and Low (1963)
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959)
Le Garde du corps (1961)
Yûsuke Kawazu
Japan
Best movies:
The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)
The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959)
Red Angel (1966)
Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi
Japan
Best movies:
Japan's Longest Day (1967)
Early Summer (1951)
The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)
Asao Sano
Japan
Best movies:
The Burmese Harp (1956)
Last Samurai (1974)
Fires on the Plain (1959)