1999 - Nen no natsu yasumi (1988)

Summer vacation has emptied a Japanese boys' school of all but three boys: the junior Norio & the seniors Kazuhiko & Naoto. They have no families to return to for the summer, so they spend ... See full summary »

Director:

Shûsuke Kaneko

Writer:

Rio Kishida

Stars:

Eri Miyajima, Tomoko Ôtakara, Miyuki Nakano

2 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Eri Miyajima	...	Yu / Kaoru
Tomoko Ôtakara	...	Kazuhiko
Miyuki Nakano	...	Naoto
Eri Fukatsu	...	Norio
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Masaaki Maeda	...	Narration
Hiromi Murata	...	Naoto (voice)
Nozomu Sasaki	...	Kazuhiko (voice)
Minami Takayama	...	Kaoru (voice)

Storyline

Summer vacation has emptied a Japanese boys' school of all but three boys: the junior Norio & the seniors Kazuhiko & Naoto. They have no families to return to for the summer, so they spend their days in the empty school. A darkness hangs over the three however: the suicide, three months earlier, of classmate Yu. Norio blames Kazuhiko for Yu's death, because it was well-known that Yu loved Kazuhiko; so Kazuhiko is cruel to Norio, and yet has bad dreams. This uneasy arrangement is exacerbated by the arrival of Kaoru, a student early for the fall - who looks exactly like Yu.

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Plot Keywords:

school | summer | dream | student | death | 

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Taglines:

Boku o koroshitano wa, KIMI da!

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Genres:

Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Romance

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

July 1989 (USA)

Also Known As:

Summer Vacation 1999

Filming Locations:

Kanda, Tokyo, Japan

Company Credits

Production Co:

CBS Sony Group Inc., New Century, Shibata Organisation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

All the boys in this film were played by girls.

User Reviews

Languid and strange

Summer Vacation: 1999 is a dreamlike coming-of-age story set in a Japanese high school all but deserted for the holidays. The only boys left on campus are orphans, They keep up the daily routine and, on the side, learn about love.

It's not quite that simple, though -- for us. The narrative is set up so that each section is a dream sequence of the section that came before it -- like a Japanese Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie without the black humor. It's a boy's school, but the majority of the four boys is played by girls (probably to accentuate the homoerotic subtext of the film). And for some reason that remains obscure, it's set in 1999, with the students using weirdly anachronistic tech gadgets that would almost seem amusing if the film had any room for humor.

When a boy, Yu, commits suicide, their small group never quite gets over it. But when a boy named Kaoru -- the virtual image of Yu -- appears at their doorstep as a new student, no one's certain if it's a sham or some fantastic coincidence. He's certainly more aggressive than meek Kaoru, and his presence awakens romantic stirrings in the boys that will lead to conflict and even violence.

The setting is pretty, the photography is pretty -- even the boys (rather, girls) are pretty. They talk about feelings and deep emotional things that are off-territory even for most girls. It's not surprising that somehow the film itself comes off as false.