- 狂った果実 (Crazed Fruit)
1/5/21 (Tues)
Nakahira Ko’s seminal 1956 film, which put the so-called taiyozoku (太陽族) or “sun tribe” on the map, is essentially Japan’s Look Back in Anger, a sensationalist look at disaffected youth in the postwar era that electrified the staid Japanese film world. It was adapted by Ishihara Shintaro from his novelette, which was bundled with two similar stories that were all made into films the same year (this being by far the best). The series includes the notorious Season of the Sun (太陽の季節), known infamously for the scene in which the main character slams his erect organ through the paper shoji screen. The title of that story led an interviewer to refer in an article to the Sun Tribe, a label that came to define a generation. (The story is alluded to in this film in the boat’s English name, Sun Season.) Ishihara makes a brief appearance in the film as one of a group of thugs, but more important was his insistence that the filmmakers cast his younger brother Yujiro, creating a legend.
sekenbanashi 