Having seen the double bill of the newspaper office-set duo of The Sleeping Beast Within and Smashing the O-Line (both 1960,both also reviewed) I was interested to find out what auteur Seijun Suzuki followed them up with,leading to me joining the knights.
Note:Spoilers in review.
View on the film:
From the opening in the school, Arrow present a crisp transfer which keeps the colour tone even and clean, and soundtrack sharp and clear.
In only the second title he had made in colour at the time, directing auteur Seijun Suzuki and occasional cinematographer collaborator Kazue Nagatsuka display an infectious love for the format by using it to expand on Suzuki's early Japanese New Wave (JNW) surrealist stylisation.
Marking a end to his earlier gritty Film Noir era, Suzuki casts a Pop Art atmosphere of hip wipes and pop-up shots darting across the screen to the beat of Matsubara's (played by a lively Koji Wada) Jazz club arrangement, (Jazz being a major recurring theme in Suzuki's credits) which rolls out to a psychedelic JNW song number, and a Caper-style chase with a Noh theater mask.
Originally titled The Lost Cufflinks, the screenplay by Kenzaburo Hara & Iwao Yamazaki slickly presents the constant genre-crossing flux that Suzuki would later become known for. The writers bring the young loner, multi-talented Matsubara back to Japan to hit the top marks in a high school Drama, which crosses over to a jaunty Caper mystery of Matsubara discovering during his break from classes the cause of his dad "accidentally" falling to his death,when he gets hold of the lost cufflinks.
