YOUTH OF THE BEAST/ Yaju no seishun

Japan, 1963, 92 minutes, Colour and black-and-white.
Jo Shishido.
Directed by Seijun Suzuki.

During the 1960s, director Sujein Suzuki made a great number of films, many of them pot boiling dramas and melodramas, touches of the pornographic as permitted by the times, but acquiring a strong reputation which has lasted many decades, some of his films being continually revived. This film is considered one of his best – as is Tokyo Drifter, also with his regular actor, Jo Shishida.

This is a complex film and its plot, twists and betrayals, but also difficult for the audience to keep track of who is who.

Initially, there is the death of a policeman and a singer, with scenes of the singer later, but the meaning of the deaths becomes clear at the end. Jo Shishida portrays a young man who makes an impact in a club, comes to the attention of the crime bosses, echoes of the Yakuza, and they want to employ him. As he goes about his work, he begins to play one group against the other, insinuating himself into confidence, in violent and action circumstances.

At the end, there are confrontations – as well as many shootouts along the way. It emerges at the end of the film that he is avenging the death of the policeman and the woman seen at the beginning of the film.

Of interest for those studying the history of Japanese cinema, especially the pop art films of the 1960s and of this particular director. Some parallel might be made with the films from the American company, American International, small budget, action films from the 1960s and 1970s.