Reviews & Ratings for
Boy More at IMDbPro »Shônen (original title)

9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Oshima explores identity formation, 24 May 2009

Author: timmy_501 from United States

The premise of Boy is quite simple: a middle aged couple travels around Japan and fakes accidents because they know hapless automobile drivers would rather pay a little bit of money to make their troubles go away then confront them. Most of the time they get the oldest child, who is never given a name beyond Boy, to quickly jump into a car from the side. The drivers must be very guilty people because they all assume they have in fact hit the Boy in spite of the impossible logistics they are presented with.

The Boy is the main character of the film and he's as disturbed as you would expect a ten year old boy who works dangerous con jobs to be. Since his family moves around all the time he doesn't have any sort of perspective of place, he hears the names of cities they are in and ones they are going to but they are never more than names to him. The Boy also lacks the usual naivety and faith in others that are usually found in children that age; he sees the worst side of the strange adults he deals with and his parents are trashy criminals: in addition to being the mastermind of their scam, the Father is also abusive and manipulative. The Mother is actually not the Boy's real mother but he still prefers her to his father; she may treat him poorly and give in all too easily to his father but she at least occasionally feels bad and tries to make him feel better. The Boy is in the unusual position of being the most intelligent and mature person in most of the encounters he has with others.

Although the Boy is disenchanted with humanity he is not disenchanted with all lifeforms: he repeatedly tells his baby brother and the Mother about the aliens from outer space. These aliens actually care about one another and help each other out instead of greedily deceiving each other. Basically, the aliens represent to him what family represents to most children his age. Unsurprisingly, he sees himself as a part of this mysterious but ubiquitous race, presumably one that has been placed in Japan by mistake.

In addition to the fascinating characterization of the protagonist Boy is also interesting for its experimental style. Oshima experiments with still images and distortions (as in the scene in which the Boy wears someone else's glasses and everything is slanted) and especially with color: filters give scenes tone they wouldn't have otherwise, often suggesting the emotions of the Boy quite effectively.

Oshima shows Japan as a country striving to find a sense of itself much as the boy does, particularly in the scene where Japan's traditional colors of red and white are displayed prominently in the background: not on the familiar flag but on a giant Coca Cola billboard. It's also no coincidence that the family exploits automobile traffic and not something more traditionally Japanese.

With Boy Oshima managed to make a film that was simultaneously universal in its treatment of human nature, culturally relevant in its treatment of postwar Japan's national identity, and modernistically rich in its treatment of cinematic techniques.

7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
Con artists, 4 February 2003
Author: ayeroxor from Tampa, FL

Based on the true story of Iwao Nakamoto (1922 - ?) & Hatsue Deguchi (1939 - ?).

A chance accident caused one of the Japan's most controversial series of crimes in the 1960s. When Deguchi received in April 1966 the then considerable sum of 20,000 yen from the driver of a car that hit her and caused a minor injury, she and common-law husband Nakamoto struck on a plan that would earn their family millions of yen.

The pair forced Nakamoto's 10-year-old son and their 3-year-old son to walk hither and yon, but especially into the sides of slow-traveling cars. Once they'd been hit, the kids promptly hit the ground and pretended that a fatal blow had struck them.

The tears would flow freely and Nakamoto would rush across to the party "at fault" in the accident and demand compensation in return for not suing them. The family worked on the scheme for months until they were finally caught.

They ended up pulling off about 60 scams that netted them over 2 million yen. Renowned director Nagisa Oshima used the story to make the hit 1969 film "Shonen," the proceeds of which he used to pay for his controversial movie "In the Realm of the Senses."

2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Man from Space, 15 February 2007
Author: Meganeguard from Kansas

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

From 1968 to 1971 Oshima Nagisa would direct five films that would not only receive critical acclaim in his native Japan, but would also spread his name to foreign markets, especially America and France. These films were: Death by Hanging, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, Boy, The Man Who Left His Will on Film, and Ceremony. Of these five films Boy is considered to be the most straightforward while the others, especially The Man Who Left His Will on Film which is considered to be Oshima's most difficult film, were entrenched in the traditions of modern Japanese theater and the theatrical craft of Bertolt Brecht. Whereas the other four films have a very limited plot and the cohesion of their various stories seems weak, Boy is very cohesive and, for Oshima Nagisa at least, almost formulaic. However, being that this is an Oshima film; the film might not be quite as formulaic as it first appears.

Like many of his films, Boy is grounded in fact. In the year 1966 a couple was arrested for faking traffic accidents, they would pretend to be hit by cars while "crossing" the street, and extorting money from the drivers. However, what truly struck the Japanese populace as outrageous was that they used their ten-year-old son as a tool in this scheme. Newspaper headlines read: Accident-Faking Couple Uses Child," "The Criminal Journey of the Demonic Accident-Faking Couple," and "Five Months of Strange Devotion in the Parent-Child Accident-Faker Scheme." The story faded from the headlines in a couple of weeks, but the story rooted itself in Oshima's brain and he was determined to create a filmic version of the odd series of crimes even going as far to scrounge orphanages to find the perfect "Boy" in the figure of Abe Tetsuo.

Starring the always impressive Watanabe Fumio as the father and Oshima's wife Koyama Akiko as the (step) mother, the story unfolds from the perspective of the Boy as his family travels around Japan ripping off unsuspecting victims. Actually it is only the mother and the boy who do the actual ripping off, because the father has old war wounds and is unable to "work." However, this definitely does not prevent him from indulging in the money that his son and wife "worked" for. Normally living in squalid, rented homes, after the boy or his mother earns a fair amount of money, the father is quite quick to spend it on fine hotels, food, and alcohol. Being well aware that the boy is unhappy ripping off unsuspecting people and moving from place to place, the father tries to instill in his son that his grandmother and friends have already forgotten him and that they were glad that he left. Despite these words, the boy does run away a few times, but he can never get too far from the oppression of his father.

While seemingly not as artistic or complex as some of Oshima's other films, Boy does examine such topics as the powers of imagination and guilt driven obedience in good detail. Definitely a film not to be missed by fans of Japanese New Wave Cinema.

1 out of 34 people found the following review useful:
don't waste your time, 28 October 2002

Author: edtherevelator from Cleveland, OH

although not a terrible film, there's really nothing out of the ordinary to see in this. You feel no emotion for any of the characters, which is unfortunate because you want to like at least one of them. The fact that the subtitles were white really hurt the film. On the plus side, the soundtrack, while very scarce, fit the film quite well.

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