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IMDbPro

Youth of the Beast

Original title: Yajû no seishun
  • 19631963
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 1h 32m
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
3.6K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
56,885
6,769
Jô Shishido in Youth of the Beast (1963)
ActionCrimeMystery
A violent thug plays opposing yakuza bosses against each other.A violent thug plays opposing yakuza bosses against each other.A violent thug plays opposing yakuza bosses against each other.
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
3.6K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
56,885
6,769
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Seijun Suzuki
    • Writers
      • Ichirô Ikeda
      • Tadaaki Yamazaki
      • Haruhiko Ôyabu(novel)
    • Stars
      • Jô Shishido
      • Misako Watanabe
      • Tamio Kawaji
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Seijun Suzuki
    • Writers
      • Ichirô Ikeda
      • Tadaaki Yamazaki
      • Haruhiko Ôyabu(novel)
    • Stars
      • Jô Shishido
      • Misako Watanabe
      • Tamio Kawaji
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 28User reviews
    • 39Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • Photos37

    Jô Shishido in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Jô Shishido in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Jô Shishido in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Nobuo Kaneko in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Misako Watanabe in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Shirô Yanase in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Yuriko Abe in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Yuriko Abe, Eimei Esumi, Jô Shishido, and Shirô Yanase in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Masao Shimizu in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Daisaburô Hirata in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Naomi Hoshi in Youth of the Beast (1963)
    Naomi Hoshi in Youth of the Beast (1963)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Jô Shishido
    Jô Shishido
    • Jôji 'Jo' Mizuno
    • (as Joe Shishido)
    Misako Watanabe
    Misako Watanabe
    • Kumiko Takeshita
    Tamio Kawaji
    Tamio Kawaji
    • Hideo Nomoto
    • (as Tamio Kawachi)
    Minako Katsuki
    • Sawako Miura
    Daisaburô Hirata
    • Shibata
    Eiji Gô
    Eiji Gô
    • Shigeru Takechi
    Kôichi Uenoyama
    • Masao Hisano
    Akiji Kobayashi
    Akiji Kobayashi
    • Tatsuo Nomoto
    Yûzô Kiura
    • Takeo Minegishi
    Naomi Hoshi
    • Keiko
    Hiroshi Kôno
    • Seizô Honma
    Eimei Esumi
    Eimei Esumi
    • Gorô Minami
    Shuntarô Tamamura
    • Shôichi Maeda
    Mizuho Suzuki
    Mizuho Suzuki
    • Detective Hirokawa
    Zenji Yamada
    • Fujita
    Yuriko Abe
    Yuriko Abe
    • Takechi's Wife
    Ikuko Kimuro
    Shirô Yanase
    • Ken Ishizaki
    • Director
      • Seijun Suzuki
    • Writers
      • Ichirô Ikeda
      • Tadaaki Yamazaki
      • Haruhiko Ôyabu(novel)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      This is is the first of Seijun Suzuki's films to be shot in black and white in the opening and then in color for the rest of the movie. He would do this again in Tokyo Drifter (1966).
    • Connections
      Featured in Best in Action: 1963 (2019)

    User reviews28

    Review
    Top review
    9/10
    gripping direction from a man bringing post-modernism and brutality to the forefront
    I think one of the aspects of Youth of the Beast, the late genre- filmmaker master Seijun Suzuki's breakthrough, to take into account is that the story moves at a breathless pace. It's not that it is a story that is hard to follow - there are a good many characters to get to know, and after a black and white prologue (though at first I wasn't sure if it was a 'show-end-at-beginning' thing before going into full color for the majority of the film), we're put right into the physical space of this seemingly violent thug played by Jô Shishido (also named Jo here, good call) - it's that Suzuki, I think, is not so much interested in the story as in how a film MOVES. After all, it is a movie, right? Let's get that motion picture moving and vibrant and with energy. This is like a shotgun blast of 60's crime cinema that makes us feel a lot of things through a lot of intense visual choreography of the frame and what is in it (i.e. the old Scorsese axiom, cinema being a matter of what's in the frame and what's out, is paramount to Suzuki)/

    Youth of the Beast is not necessarily the most remarkable film as far as the story goes, and I'm sure there have been other Yakuza films and other gangster thrillers that have similarities; in a sense this isn't unlike Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars/Red Harvest, though this time the main character has more of a motive than in that story. What's remarkable is the direction and how the tone is brutal and yet it's staged in some creative ways. There's times when you know a character is about to lunge at someone else, or that we get a piece of visual information like a knife being held under a table or somewhere else, before that character lunges and strikes. Other times it's more about how he'll pan the camera, like when the car full of the one crime family gets ambushed by another car (the music cue here is especially, terribly exhilarating, and the rest of the score has a wonderful jazz rhythm to it), and when we see those faces of the guys with their masks on and how he pushes in.

    Hell, even just how Suzuki uses color cinematography is impressive, all of those reds (the woman being whipped on the carpet), and how he'll have a backdrop like at the movie theater where the Yakuza do some of their business and a film screen projecting some movie or other is in the background of the frame. It feels like one of those moments where post-modernism is creeping in to Japanese cinema, and of course Suzuki would continue making such advances with Tokyo Drifter and particularly Branded to Kill. The movie is hard and rough, violent and the characters' motivations - well, I should say Jo, who is basically undercover playing one side and then another until it's an all-out war - are intense enough that the cast rises above what could be basic (even boiler-plate) B-movie pulp. I don't know how much input Suzuki had on the script, but he knows how to keep his actors moving and being interesting, whether it's Jo, who is the stand-out of the film, or his 'friend' who has a thing for the ladies.

    This is pulp Japanese cinematic excellence, all feeding off of a vision that is unique.
    helpful•3
    0
    • Quinoa1984
    • Mar 9, 2017

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • April 21, 1963 (Japan)
    • Country of origin
      • Japan
    • Language
      • Japanese
    • Also known as
      • La jeunesse de la bête
    • Production company
      • Nikkatsu
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 32 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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