The Warped Ones

Great looking, but ultimately rambling story of two thugs and a prostitute who get out of prison an continue their wanton ways, while taking revenge on, and repeatedly crossing paths with, the people who put them there.

Playing like a Japanese Breathless or Rebel Without a Cause, this is wonderful looking movie. The film was clearly shot on real locations so it has a sense of place that few films I've seen can match. Luscious black and white photography is arresting to see. I'm guessing the cities and country sides never looked this good.

The cast is very good and keep you watching even when the plot seems to be going nowhere for a good chunk of the first half.

Thats the rub, the plot. This hip and happening tale of young Japan rambles around for a good chunk of it going nowhere. Its not that its bad, its just it took a long time to get where it was going, or at least feel like it was heading somewhere. The point of the film is to contrast the three antiheroes with the pair who sent them away, and who are seen, in the end to be just as awful as those they despise. Once that happens the first time we're only left with a repetition of the point the two or three more times it happens. Sprinkled with profanity, rape, robbery and abortion this would have gotten banned in many communities had it showed up in the US at the time of release in Japan. Even today its more than likely liable to get a rise out of most audience. Its a walk on a dark side that rattles you with its matter of factness.

Is it worth seeing? On most levels yes. Its a wonderful antidote for what was being done elsewhere in the world at the same time (its also more real than many similar Hollywood films). The music is great and the hip, often nihilistic attitude almost saves it all. On the other hand odds are that this is probably not going to be a film you watch a second time, there's nothing wrong with it, its just not as meaty as it thinks it is or we hoped it would be. Ultimately its a movie I admire more than I like.

The social situation in Rebel Without a Cause looks pretty healthy in comparison to Akira's life in this film. Make no mistake, the director probably didn't want you to find this guy empathetic or romantic regardless of his ingenuity, optimism, or opinions on abstract expressionism. He isn't so much a character with an arc as a force of nature motivating others, a plot device.

Oddly enough, The Warped Ones is really a conservative film even if it doesn't realize it, warning of the breakdown of the family unit, the failure of the reform system, the rise of gang violence, and the perils of Western culture eroding traditional Japanese values. Everyone and everything that comes into contact with the sneering, jazz-deranged lunatic tainted or perverted. Akira merely the flea carrying the plague virus. Gotta give the film credit for not copping out at the end.

This film should be well-known, but isn't. It is in many ways the typical sixties Japanese pop-film, combining the best of nouvelle vague (hand held camera, cool-jazz score, moody, young characters) and the Japanese exploitation cinema (lots of violence, sex and rape). It is unknown, probably because of it's raw content. The main line - girl falls in love with the small time criminal who raped her - isn't to the taste of the western public, but is actually handled in a subtle matter. I've seen this one on Something weird video.

Loved the new wave 'Sun Tribe' filmmaking, loved the jazz soundtrack, hated the main character. That's probably the point, but this film takes the 'wild youth' genre to such an extreme that it was unpleasant to watch. You've got a guy who commits assault, grand theft, and rape, a guy who laughs in people's faces, acts like a complete bore and eats like a pig, and yet, the film often puts him in the positive light of the cool rebel listening to hip American jazz. It never rounds the corner to do anything else in its 76 minute run time, and the plot line with the couple he torments is silly. It's a shame because the film has such energy in the way Kurahara directed it.

(1960) The Warped Ones (In Japanese with English subtitles) PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

Post war Japan with nihilistic theme, plot less movie centering on the daily lives of three juvenile delinquents of Akira (Tamio Kawaji), Yuki (Yuko Chiyo) and Masuru (Eiji Gôonce) out of incarceration after caught pick pocketing a white tourist's wallet And once they are let out, each one of them commit even more crimes which besides stealing a car, they would then come across the same journalist who helped nabbed one of them at the film's opening, and decide to kidnap the girl, Fumiko (Noriko Matsumoto), he was seen walking with.. Full of jazz music played throughout.

Kind of a post war Japan after recovering in which Japan were still struggling with their independence, showcasing how crime was tolerated, making the film to be outdated.