Product Description

Oshima's second feature is a shocking tale of youthful delinquency in post-Hiroshima Japan. Conveying the pent-up sexuality and disillusionment among Japan's post-war generation it tells the story of teenage lovers Makoto and Kiyoshi. She's a good-girl-gone-bad, dropping out of school and out of home; he's a violent hoodlum, gambler and hustler. Making a living by performing shakedowns and attempting blackmail on unsuspecting middle-aged men, the film affords a bleak, nihilistic take to the ' taiyozako' (Japanese cinema's 'delinquent youth' films). Often billed as Japan's Rebel Without a Cause, but whereas James Dean's Jim Stark had the proverbial heart of gold, Kawazu's Kiyoshi is filled only with rage and disgust. All of life's harsh realities await Makoto and Kiyoshi - this is no morality lesson or cautionary tale, just a window into a terrible vision of humanity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19613 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-02-25
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Synopsis
A tale of teenage terror. Two youths escape from jail and team-up with a bad girl. Together they make for the border and encounter drugs, molls and bad guys.

Customer Reviews

An overlooked classic
This was Nagisa Oshima's second film. He is more known for Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence [DVD] [1983] and the notorious but outstandingThe Realm Of The Senses [DVD] [1991].

Naked Youth takes the boy from the wrong side of the tracks meets girl from good loving background and places it firmly in the new emerging Japan of the 1950s. The Second World War saw social norm in all nations overturned in the aftermath. In the US it is probably Rebel Without A Cause that was the most serious film to approach the subject.

Oshima certainly portrays a narcissistic view of the central couple that seems to both confront and conform to the Japan of the time. There is very little in the way of hope but one great moment of redemption comes when the street-punk Kiyoshi goes to see Makoto in the surgery after she has had an abortion. He brings with him two apples. He eats the green one and leaves the rosy red one for her. The viewer is taken back to a quick shot of the crucifixion on a stained glass window at Makoto's school. The apples seem to represent those from the Adam and Eve story. But also the green suggests that although Kiyoshi may be street wise he is less ripe (mature) than Makoto who has led a sheltered life up until their meeting.

For me this is the genius of Oshima and it is what makes him the greatest of Japanese film makers and one of the greatest of all time anywhere. He sometimes reminds me of Goddard (though Goddard never quite pushed social mores to the limits, even with Ave Maria) but whereas Goddard challenged through a mechanical manner, with new technical approaches, Oshima confronts the viewer head on.

There seems to be many influences in this film, mainly from the USA but at the end of the day the viewer will be of the original voice of the cinematic master.