Three high-school students set out to find their kidnapped classmate and come up against the dangers of the city, alternately chasing or fleeing the police and the yakuzas.
The actors’ astonishing performance propels the whole film into that uncommon realm where cinematic beauty espouses the brutal beauty of the world. The bodies move through space with heaviness reminiscent of the crashing tumblings of Buster Keaton, always picking themselves up again to face the violence that threatens them. And this violence, always shown from a perfect distance, seems to trigger a gush of youth and reality. With Tatsuya Fuji, who played the leading role in Oshima’s The Realm of the Senses.
