Released: July 2007
Genre: Action / Crime
Director Seijun Suzuki;

If you look back on most cinema from the early sixties, you’ll notice that there is a fairly stark lack of the violence, perversity and shock-value that we have come to love and expect from contemporary action films. For Seijun Suzuki to make and release Youth of the Beast in 1963 Japan – less than 20 years after the War – must have blown the socks off a few movie reviewers at the time.

No ordinary Yakuza flick, Youth of the Beast is the story of Jo, a disgraced policeman who was arrested and locked up for embezzlement and assault, now back on the street and seeking vengeance against his dead partner’s killer. To discover the murderer, Jo signs up with a local Yakuza gang as a ‘heavy’ and begins to secretly play them off against a rival gang in the area in hopes of creating chaos and exacting his revenge. His journey through the mob world of inner-city Tokyo leads him to meet all sorts of interesting gangsters, including the sadistic mob-boss who whips his women bloody before laying them down to make sweet love, the boss’s openly gay brother who is also a gang member and a swag of ‘super cool’ 60’s Japanese gangsters with hair and suits straight out of an Elvis bowling movie of the same era.

The abovementioned sexual depravity and homosexuality were not exactly common themes in mainstream Japanese cinema (let alone anywhere else at the time!) and the humour is about as black as you’ll ever see – for example - at one stage in the film after the Boss beats a woman a few times, one of his heavies grabs her by the hair before dragging her across the room and handing her (by the hair) to another heavy who drags her out of the room (also by the hair).

The violence is pretty heavy too, with plenty of torture, gunplay and loads of that fluorescent-red sixties blood splashed about the place… Once again all pretty full on for the sixties.

The cinematography, lighting and overall direction of this film are absolutely outstanding though, all the shock-value violence aside. Some of the close-up tableau shots with a trailing landscape background are absolutely beautiful and his camera movements – clearly Tarantino and other’s inspiration – are so modern looking it’s hard to believe they’re not digital.

This is a very unusual film in a lot of ways. Overturning traditional views of Yakuza, sexuality, violence and law enforcement in Japan, Seijun Suzuki was eventually black listed from film-making for 10 years by the studio he made this feature for. Thankfully this and most of his other films are now available on beautifully restored DVD transfers from the original 35mm prints, allowing a new audience to appreciate this brilliant and controversial director.

Rating: 4 out of 5