 
Sabu I’m discovering that when it comes to movies about teenage alienation, Japan can go toe-to-toe with America anytime. Here are two examples that despite being made nearly 50 years apart, share some very real similarities. Ko Nakakira’s Crazed Fruit was panned for depicting young adults with loose morals, cavorting with prostitutes during a lazy summer vacation. Two brothers, sixteen year-old Haruji and his older sibling Natsuhisa travel to a seaside resort where their parents have a summer home. Upon arriving at the train station, Haruji meets a young girl named Eri for a brief moment and falls in love. With nothing else to do to pass the time, he hangs around with his brother’s friends who try to set him up with some of the local girls, but to no avail. While water skiing one day, he runs into Eri again on the lake and they strike up an awkward friendship. Later, while checking out a new nightclub, Natsuhisa and his buddies spot Eri with an older American man: her husband. As Eri and Haruji begin to get closer, Natshuhisa’s hormones start raging and he eventually steals the woman away from his brother, setting the stage for a vicious act of revenge. According to the extensive liner notes, outraged censors forced Nakakira to edit overtly suggestive scenes and housewives campaigned to have the film restricted to viewers over the age of eighteen in several cities. Apparently the thought of bored teens spending their days boozed up and defying authority was too much for some, but Crazed Fruit was just the beginning of a new style of cinema that celebrated the country’s post-war boom through the eyes of the newly affluent Japanese youth.
Both films are coming-of-age stories that deal with isolation, victimization and revenge, with Crazed Fruit being the more nihilistic of the two and Sabu rooted more in honor and tradition. Both are worth your attention. - David Bassin
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Crazed Fruit
With
Sabu, cult-director Takashi Miike takes a break from his usual fare
of sex and violence to create a fable in the style of the jidaigeki
(‘period piece’), set in the Tokugawa Era. Two childhood
friends work for years as paper hangers, when one day they’re
abruptly separated. Eiji is framed for a crime he did not commit and
is sent to a “workhouse” on Ishikawa Island. Sabu is instructed
not to pursue the reasons for his friend’s punishment, but does
so anyway, placing his own livelihood in peril. Meanwhile, back on the
island, Eiji is picking fights with his fellow inmates and kicking much
ass, while at the same time, refusing to talk to anyone. When his whereabouts
are discovered, Sabu pays a visit, only to be snubbed by his angry comrade.
As time passes, Eiji begins to open up to others and eventually earns
the respect of his peers and guardians. Although he vows revenge on
the person believed responsible for his incarceration, when he’s
finally released, his life takes a different turn altogether when he
learns the truth.