Cruel Story of Youth (1960)
"Seishun zankoku monogatari" (original title)

Kiyoshi is a brooding young man who treats women solely as objects. Makoto is a young woman who is just reaching her sexual awakening. She and her friends accept car rides from middle aged ... See full summary »

Director:

Nagisa Ôshima

Writer:

Nagisa Ôshima

Stars:

Yûsuke Kawazu, Miyuki Kuwano, Yoshiko Kuga

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview:
Yûsuke Kawazu	...	Kiyoshi
Miyuki Kuwano	...	Makoto
Yoshiko Kuga	...	Yuki, Makoto's elder
Fumio Watanabe	...	Akimoto, the doctor
Shinji Tanaka	...	Yoshimi Ito, student
Yosuke Hayashi
Shinjiro Matsuzaki	...	Terada
Toshiko Kobayashi	...	Teruko
Jun Hamamura	...	Masahiro, Makoto's
Shinko Ujiie	...	Masae Sakaguchi
Aki Morishima	...	Yoko Ishikawa
Yuki Tominaga	...	Toshiko Nishioka
Kei Satô	...	Akira Matsuko
Asao Sano	...	Inspector
Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi	...	Keizo Horio

Storyline

Kiyoshi is a brooding young man who treats women solely as objects. Makoto is a young woman who is just reaching her sexual awakening. She and her friends accept car rides from middle aged men, although they state it is nothing more than fun with no intention of leading those men on. Kiyoshi and Makoto meet when he saves her from one of those middle aged men who tries to take advantage of her. Despite treating each other abusively, they start a relationship with each other which leads to what they call love, but feels more like an emotional dependence on each other to rebel against traditional society. Each with no money, they start to extort money from these middle aged men who she leads on. This act is only one demonstration of the only power they feel they have, namely sex, which they use against others as well as against each other in their doomed relationship.

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Plot Keywords:

society | young lovers | teenage love | abortion | post war japan | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

July 1961 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Story of the Cruelties of Youth

Company Credits

Production Co:

Shochiku Ofuna

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The adult subject matter was too much for the BBFC who rejected the film for a UK cinema certificate in 1960. It was finally passed uncut with a 15 certificate in 2008.

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Connections

Featured in 100 Years of Japanese Cinema (1995)

User Reviews

Best Movie You've Never Seen

See Cruel Story of Youth. It is an amazing film. Oshima Nagisa is probably best known for his avant garde work- films like "In the Realm of the Senses" and "Diary of a Shinjuku Thief"- but his earlier work is more compelling, if less sensational. This film tells the story of Makoto and Kiyoshi, two youths who suffer from the social malaise typical of their generation. They express their frustration in violent and poetic ways, which makes up the substance of the film's narrative. But putting all that aside, it's beautifully filmed and by it's end, completely heartwrenching. The color contrast is almost unprecedented- bright reds and blues set against pitch blacks. At times it has the sensibility of a yakuza film- violence abounds and Oshima makes use of sharp pans typical of that genre, giving it a very cool, retro feel. At it's core it's a love story, but of a sort that modern audiences will probably never see in a contemporary film. It shows love as the cruelest thing imaginable, making it difficult to watch at times, but in the end, impossible to forget.