Paixão Juvenil

This movie will fool you into thinking that its a story about something far more innocent that it actually is... im being vague so as to not give away any of the fun details. I don't know how to put it except to say that I really enjoyed the ride it took my heart on... first I was grinning stupidly at a tale of young love and by the end I had to pause for a moment to realize that my face was contorted in all sorts of disbelief and horror.... awesome!!!

One of the things I enjoy about this movie is that the true villains don't make much of an appearance. Its the character's own spoiled and frivolous lifestyles handed to them by their parents and sexual exploitation by foreigners that ruin these characters long before they ruin each other.

When the mother says, "don't hang out with your brother and his friends, they are horrible brutes etc etc" to which the boy replies "well,you raised him." In the movie this was a joke, and the characters allhad a nice chuckle... but that was the most serious point the story conveyed - the capitalist dream imploding - cuz lets face it, if you have everything you want, you're probably going to be bored and miserable.

In the same way, the very young very beautiful Hari marries the old white curr for his money, but realizes she's lost the most important thing, something priceless, her childhood innocence.

In my interpretation, its not the evil within these characters that leads to their undoing, its the evil they were subjected to. I want to believe there's good in them, and the actors do a brilliant job of keeping us wondering and uncertain about that because of the extremely nuanced and balanced performances.

The actors who play the brothers are brilliant, the younger especially, who has a very understated but creepy air about him...

In the end, all i can say is "bone chilling!!!" haha... watch it.

What a fascinating film this is. Elements of it surprised me for 1956, and in particular for a Japanese movie. It seems to me a forerunner of the French New Wave, and that this archetypal 'Sun Tribe' effort represents an even bigger departure from traditional Japanese cinema at the time than those films would be to the French. No wonder François Truffaut was such a fan of it.

The story is straightforward - two brothers fall for the same woman - but this is a film about tone, and context. Everything about it screams post-war, disaffected youth. A group of young men are bored, critical of traditional ways, and looking for good times - and young ladies. The younger of the two brothers (Masahiko Tsugawa) has an innocence about him, and falls for a pretty woman (Mie Kitahara) without realizing she's already married. The drama deepens when his older brother (Yujiro Ishihara) begins putting the moves on her behind his back.

The openness with which Kitahara's sexuality is displayed is a little shocking, though there is a grace to it, and it's refreshing to see. She deceives her American husband, and enjoys being the center of attention at a party. With the younger brother she needs to provide encouragement for him to make love to her, in one scene moving his hands up on to her breast. With the older brother, she gives way to his forceful overtures, even after saying 'no' initially. If that sort of thing is a trigger to you, you may want to avoid this one, as it also has the young men competing early on to see who can bring the hottest girl to a party, and other testosterone-fueled chatter. In general, the characters are hard to like, which may also be a turn-off. On the other hand, that's part of the point, and the film shows a reckless and sexually carefree youth in ways that are less inhibited than Hollywood at the time.

All of the principal actors turn in solid performances, and Masumi Okada is quite debonair in a supporting role. Mie Kitahara is quite pretty, and it's interesting that she would marry Ishihara, the actor who plays the older brother, just four years later. There is a little unevenness in the shots director Kô Nakahira captures - some are just beautiful, while others seem low-budget - but it's an impressive first film, and all the more so as it was a few years ahead of the French New Wave (e.g. Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958), Truffaut's 400 Blows (1959), Godard's Breathless (1960), etc). It seems to me the film ought to be better known.

I was curious about this movie when I first heard about it, but I was not sure what to expect. Thankfully this movie is a bag of chips, with dip and beer.

The movie revolves around the exploits of well to do Japanese teenagers (possibly early 20's), in post WWII Japan. We mostly follow around two brothers, Natsuhisa and Haruji. They go off to the coast where they hang out with friends, water ski, swim, sail, drink, smoke, go clubbing, get into fights and play a game where they try to pick up as many women as possible. They don't have any responsibility and mostly just lie around, complaining about how there's nothing interesting to do. Just like in the Beatniks they are out looking for thrills.

The conflict in the movie arises from Haruji (the younger brother). Out of the group, Haruji is the youngest and most naive. He meets a beautiful girl, Eri and brings her to one of their parties. She catches the eye of Haruji's older and more "experienced" brother, Natsuhisa. Thus the triangular conflict is set and ready to go.

The movie is quite graphic, considering this movie was made in 1956. In the same way the Beatniks (and other similar period movies) depicted disenchanted and "sinful" teenagers in the US, Crazed Fruit does the same for Japan.

The final scene of the movie is a classic, worthwhile and carnal. I highly recommend this movie.

-Celluloid Rehab

The title "Crazed Fruit" probably has different connotations in Japanese...but in English, the title seems to suggest the viewer is in for a trashy entertainment. In fact, "Crazed Fruit" is a brilliant, thoughtful, and powerful film.

The film succeeds through its strong writing and strong performances. The director seems to have a clear vision for the film -- unusual, considering it was his debut feature.

What gives "Crazed Fruit" its depth and richness is the subtlety of the plot and performances. The film ends in tragedy, but this outcome has its origins in ordinary, minor human flaws that anyone could identify with. The three main characters' weaknesses combine in a particularly unfortunate way, to produce a spectacularly bad result. The younger brother is blameless and pure in his desire to know true love; the older brother is understandably overcome by the strength of his feelings of love and passion; the girl is blameness in her desire to experience an innocent and powerful form of love. Yet together, the three work to bring about disaster.

Highly recommended.

This is the first movie I've seen starring Yujiro Ishihara. I've heard something about the culture him and his brother Shintaro represented in the '50s, but it was way before my time, and I had no idea what this cultural phenomena was about in the '50s Japan. It's nice to find that Criterion Collection have revived this masterpiece.

Writer of this movie - Shintaro Ishihara made his debut as a writer with the novel "Season of the Sun" which described the decadent lifestyle of the affluent youth of Japan a year before this movie was made. The youth culture depicted in this novel was called "Sun Tribe", and in this movie Haruji (Masahiko Tsugawa) has a line where he describes his older brother and friends "They call folks like you the Sun Tribe.". Shintaro's younger brother Yujiro Ishihara plays the role of Haruji's elder brother Natsuhisa in this movie.

Basically, it's about the culture of the affluent set in Japan, but the genius of Shintaro Ishihara was that he already saw through the facade of shallow life style such living can bring and put it down in a novel which was both entertaining, and with style no one had written previously. Such an awesome insight from a person who is still in his early 20s.

The casting of this movie reads like who's who of young actors who went on to support mainstream Japanese cinema, and TV dramas for the next 20 years. This movie is also the debut movie for actor Masahiko Tsugawa who we see frequently in today's movie from Japan. He was called in by Shintaro after Shintaro spotted him at a wedding. Shintaro described that Tsugawa left an indelible impression on him when he first saw him.

Not too many people can stay in forefront of society for over 50 years influencing the course of that society, but Shintaro Ishihara has done just that as he is the present mayor of Tokyo.

Actress Mie Kitahara who played Eri, and Yujiro Ishihara marries four years later, this movie bringing the two together.

I've heard that Shintaro was abolished for writing decadent lifestyle of youth when his first novel Taiyo no Kisetsu (also made into movie in '56) came out, but actually I think this is a movie all youth should see as a warning not to indulge in this type of behavior, as it was the point with Shintaro's writing as well. This movie is written masterfully with all the critical points placed in its right place.

If you watch this movie without the background information of Japan in the '50s, it may appear as few spoiled kids having a wild time, but the true insight of this movie goes much deeper than that. Highly recommended.