User reviews

Joji 'Jo' Mizuno is a tough guy who walks into the lives of two rival crime gangs, playing each against the other for his own financial benefit, both are eager to have him working for them, but both will ultimately regret their decision, when his real motives are revealed. A fascinating crime story based on the novel by Haruhiko Oyabu, that pulls you in instantly, a story that reveals itself only little by little. Suzuki's film is also a pleasure to the eye, the glorious use of colours gives the film a vibrancy that when combined with the demented jazzy score, gives the film an overall pop art feel. The characters are all cool as hell and immaculately well dressed, the Tokyo street scenes are a pleasure to see in full colour, certainly the best use of urban Tokyo I've seen since House of Bamboo. Overall this is a thoroughly entertaining crime flick with pulp overtones, it may not be strong on violence but its certainly not to be missed.

This is one of the Yakuza movies made during the height of Seijun Suzuki's run at Nikkatsu Studios. It's not as abstract as the later stuff but it's just as brilliant. It can't be stressed enough that though he made "entertainment films" he did it with a vengeance. I've seen four of his films so far, ranging from 1958 to 1967, and they're all strikingly original. From this period 'Tokyo Drifter' seems to get more press than 'Youth of the Beast' (both star Jo Shisido) but I'll take this one. The colors and the composition of the wide-screen images draw you in, while the violence and the narrative jags keep you guessing. Highly recommended both for both its artistry and its energy, if you like gangster movies here's one for you.

The plot revolves around Jo, a tough ex-con with a mysterious past who shows up and deftly goes to work for rival Yakuza bosses. He immediately pits them against each other and starts raking in as much money as he can. However, it soon becomes clear that he has ulterior motives involving a string of call-girls operated by one of the bosses. Literally no one is safe when he starts clawing his way toward the center of the web.

"Youth of the Beast" begins with what appears to be a double suicide--a cop and his mistress. However, this will play an important part in the film later. In the meantime, the ultra-cool Japanese actor, Jo Shishido, plays Jo Mizuno--a guy who is super-tough and wants to join one of the yakuza gangs. Hwever, he obviously has something up his sleeve, as he soon joins the rival gang--and soon he begins pitting them against each other. In many ways, this plays like a non-comedic version of Kurasawa's 1961 classic "Yojimbo"--as a crafty guy manages to gain the trust of both gangs in order to bring them down. The big question is why? Why does J constantly risk his life and what does this have to do with the two dead folks at the film's beginning?

Because there are rival gangs and lots of betrayals, the film can get a bit confusing--especially at the end when everyone seems to be shooting everyone! These scum naturally don't wear uniforms so sometimes I did have a bit of trouble keeping track of who is who. Still, it is a very good gangster film--one that has plenty of action and the usual Shishido level of coolness. Well crafted and exciting--plus learning who was behind everything--that was a pretty fifty twist!

"Yaju no Seishun" ("Youth of the Beast") is, without doubt, one of the greatest Japanese films of the 1960's. It is also, arguably, the best film from the amazing director, Suzuki Seijun. This was Suzuki-sensei's "breakthrough" film; in as much as it was the first film where he truly let his flamboyant, dizzying, artistic sense come forward. Full of intense, innovative, eye-popping visuals, the film never loses its solid narrative flow; thanks, in part, to a great script based on the novel by Hard-Boiled master, Oyabu Haruhiko. What more could one ask for? A great story, brilliant direction, and outstanding performances (especially by Shishido Jo). This is a superior example of the Japanese thriller--and, for that matter, crime cinema of the 1960's in general!

I think one of the aspects of Youth of the Beast, the late genre- filmmaker master Seijun Suzuki's breakthrough, to take into account is that the story moves at a breathless pace. It's not that it is a story that is hard to follow - there are a good many characters to get to know, and after a black and white prologue (though at first I wasn't sure if it was a 'show-end-at-beginning' thing before going into full color for the majority of the film), we're put right into the physical space of this seemingly violent thug played by Jô Shishido (also named Jo here, good call) - it's that Suzuki, I think, is not so much interested in the story as in how a film MOVES. After all, it is a movie, right? Let's get that motion picture moving and vibrant and with energy. This is like a shotgun blast of 60's crime cinema that makes us feel a lot of things through a lot of intense visual choreography of the frame and what is in it (i.e. the old Scorsese axiom, cinema being a matter of what's in the frame and what's out, is paramount to Suzuki)/

Youth of the Beast is not necessarily the most remarkable film as far as the story goes, and I'm sure there have been other Yakuza films and other gangster thrillers that have similarities; in a sense this isn't unlike Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars/Red Harvest, though this time the main character has more of a motive than in that story. What's remarkable is the direction and how the tone is brutal and yet it's staged in some creative ways. There's times when you know a character is about to lunge at someone else, or that we get a piece of visual information like a knife being held under a table or somewhere else, before that character lunges and strikes. Other times it's more about how he'll pan the camera, like when the car full of the one crime family gets ambushed by another car (the music cue here is especially, terribly exhilarating, and the rest of the score has a wonderful jazz rhythm to it), and when we see those faces of the guys with their masks on and how he pushes in.

Hell, even just how Suzuki uses color cinematography is impressive, all of those reds (the woman being whipped on the carpet), and how he'll have a backdrop like at the movie theater where the Yakuza do some of their business and a film screen projecting some movie or other is in the background of the frame. It feels like one of those moments where post-modernism is creeping in to Japanese cinema, and of course Suzuki would continue making such advances with Tokyo Drifter and particularly Branded to Kill. The movie is hard and rough, violent and the characters' motivations - well, I should say Jo, who is basically undercover playing one side and then another until it's an all-out war - are intense enough that the cast rises above what could be basic (even boiler-plate) B-movie pulp. I don't know how much input Suzuki had on the script, but he knows how to keep his actors moving and being interesting, whether it's Jo, who is the stand-out of the film, or his 'friend' who has a thing for the ladies.

This is pulp Japanese cinematic excellence, all feeding off of a vision that is unique.

One of Suzuki's best films. The scenes behind the one-way glass in the nightclub make for some brilliant camera angles. Joe Shishido turns in another fine performance as a brutish thug with a secret agenda. If you are a fan of 60's era violent gangster type cinema don't pass this up!

Youth of the Beast is pretty much acclaimed, but I just can't appreciate it very much, partly because it's quite a dated film - the 60s, and the execution reminded me of the old 60s Batman and the Green Hornet series, in its noir crime storyline as well as the use of the ol' fisticuffs to settle scores. Not that I didn't enjoy it though, but my smile stemmed more from the cheesiness.

Of course when watching a film from the past, you got to approach it in the context when it was shown in. And it pretty much gave you a glimpse at old Japan, with its production sets, costumes, and acting style - which is exaggerated. Special effects and stunts were quite low key (probably groundbreaking for the era), with some shots suffering from sudden jump cuts, and looking raw. Certain stunts were found to be wanting, but again, for that era, it's adequately executed, though by today's standards, audiences would be more unforgiving.

The violence too didn't let up, and for a Yakuza movie, violence is part and parcel to their lifestyle. There are a number of innovative techniques used, such as the flame from an aerosol can, and the insertion of a blade underneath the fingernail as a torture method to inflict pain. I was surprised too at the raw scratching off upholstery from a sofa set, which seemed quite realistically painful for the actress to perform.

Director Seijun Suzuki actually helmed the movie Yumeji (1991), from which the theme song is used in Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love. Here, he crafts the movie from a novel by Haruhiko Oyabu, which could have served as inspiration for Lucky Number Slevin in its playing off mob bosses. Here, Jo Mizuno (Joe Shishido) infiltrates and joins a gang by forcing his way through to the top, beating up everyone and anyone who dare stands in his way.

Impressed, he's given a stint with the gang, and slowly, a mystery begins to unravel as to his motivations and objectives to doing what he does. It plays out rather straightforward, and you would have guessed his intentions pretty earlier on in the movie, but what impressed is how simple it is to style a movie in this manner back in the 60s. Taking seemingly simple everyday locations like nightclubs and cinemas and having shady dealings taking place under a legitimate business front, does seem rather suggestive of how gangsters operate at the time.

I'd pretty much recommend this to those who have high cheese tolerance, or fans of the swinging 60s era movies. Nothing much really to shout about.

The Criterion DVD comes with an essay insert, the theatrical trailer (60s trailers all have those sensational big words covering 90% of the screen, very nostalgic), a 4"48' interview with director Seijun Suzuki, and a 7"56' interview with actor Joe Shishido. For a Criteriod DVD, it's pretty much barebones by standards.

Jô Shishido gets a job with one Yakuza gang that's at war. He's tough, he's got a record, and they're impressed. He then goes to the rival Yakuza gang and gets a job with them, spying on the first gang.

Seijun Suzuki's crime drama clearly is modeled on Yojimbo, but the two directors ran the story to different ends. Kurosawa's movie has a satirical edge, with his lone samurai caught in a war between silk merchants (capitalists), who co-opt gamblers (Yakuza); way down in the subtext is the implication that both groups are self-serving and will destroy Japan. They are also stupid and cowardly. A clever samurai can serve Japan by destroying them both.

Suzuki's movie makes it all yakuza, and they are overtly tough, smart, and not in the least cowardly. Also, Shishido has a backstory and motive. Suzuki is more concerned with showing us the big cars, the beautiful suits and offices, and the mangled corpses. There's no angry humor in his movie. Just death and destruction. Which was very popular in the movies at this time.

That's what I like so much about Suzuki (and other genre directors from back then). He made genre pictures on studio demand yet sacrificed none of his personal style and artistic aspirations in the process. As a result, Youth of the Beast is as entertaining as it is visually fascinating, the work of a true master craftsman.

Jo Shishido plays Jo, a hard-ass guy that won't take no for an answer who inflitrates the local yakuza mob and quickly gains the trust of the boss and his underlings. But when he plays this and another gang against each other, it becomes apparent he has a hidden agenda and operates for reasons of his own. The story is rock solid with enough twists and turns to keep things interested, a whole assortment of colourful (and sociopathic) characters and plenty of violence and hard-boiled badassitude to boot. OK, the violence is relatively tame by today's stadards, but unlike other yakuza flicks from the 60's and 70's, the main character in Suzuki's pictures is his style.

Vibrant colours from every end of the palette are combined into beautiful frames, with meticulous attention to detail and an eye for composition. Suzuki is good doing black and white but his work operates on a whole other level when he takes on colour. Clearly a challenge for any director that had to make the transition from b/w to colour (as Sidney Lumet details in his book Making Movies), Suzuki here excels in the task. Unusual yet beautiful compositions include the opening scene which is in shot black and white with with the only exception of a flower appearing in colour, until flashy colour and loud swing music boom at the next cut to reveal a busy Japanese street; or the scenes where Jo and the rival gang boss talk to each other while an old b/w Japanese movie plays in the back; the golden clouds of sand that blow outside the boss's house. There are many such examples yet for all its artistic intent, Youth of the Beast never deviates from its goal: to tell a highly entertaining pulpy crime story of revenge. Not as gritty and nihilistic as the works of Kinji Fukasaku and with a dash of film noir, this is a great ride for fans of 60's crime cinema.

Wonderful Blu-ray print of a fabulous turning point film for Seijun Suzuki. Gone suddenly is his slavish adherence to the studio's ritualistic and formulaic demands and here are the lovely colourful street scenes and crazy kaleidoscopic interiors. There are, of course, yakuza and the small matter of fingers going missing but from the start this has something of the humour and duplicity of Yojimbo and Jo Shishido is slipping effortlessly into the role he would make icon a few years later in Branded to Kill. There is no ponderous exposition here as we slip from scene to scene with European style wipes and fades and even semi jump cuts. The simplistic plot is a little hard to follow at times, not because it is complicated but that the tale is being told at such a pace and with such hypnotic visuals we are constantly distracted. Wonderful.

A visually striking film but, oh ye gods, those one dimensional characters! Makes ya want to scream "ambiguity!"

Really good action packed stuff! Hitchcock meets film noir. Could the warped, cat-loving, uber thug lord, Nomoto be the inspiration for Bond nemesis, Blofeld, from You Only Live Twice(1967)? (Hold pinkie to corner of lip). Remember the Godfather also liked to pet his kitty while he plotted mayhem. Are all those characters derived from this film? Watch and decide for yourself. This film has a great jazzy score, too. The high energy music really makes up for the hassle of having to read subtitles and provides a nice upbeat counterpoint to the graphic violence. Definitely a seminal movie for lovers of Coppola, Scorcese, Tarantino, Peckinpaw,and the rest of the directors of the hardboiled visceral films of the later 60's and 70's. I think this film is an essential movie for any action film aficionado.

No wonder Tarantino and Woo cite this film as inspiration. The art direction alone is worthy of conversation. The plot, although slow to develop, pays off. The acting and stunts make the film even more exciting.

Why did the male lead get cheek implants?

Went in expecting Seijun Suzuki's usual Noir/crime, but this one exceeded my expectations. Seijun's visually artistic sense got a perfect story to weave and he blended them so perfectly with his gritty narrative style which in turn compelled me to glued to it till the end. The color choices in this movies makes every scene visually appealing and the camerawork, editing , creative shots further aided the flow. Despite violence being brutal, the way they shot and executed those episodes satiated my hunger. The twisty narrative keeps the flow intact and goes on a pretty solid pace throughout. Opening the movie in B&W and moving it to the color in next second shows Seijun's crazy style, I loved it. Jo Shishido is the show stealer and rest of the gave ample support. The beauty of this movie is , with every passing minute, it made me appreciate it more and by the end of the movie, became one of my favorite movies ever in this genre. It may not be an out of the box idea, but the stylistic and creative choices makes this one an entertainingly engaging yet impactful movie from 60's.

"That's my line, fool!"

A smart, stylish yakuza film from Seijun Suzuki, starring Joe Shishido. The story-telling is taut and while there are double dealings and some nice twists, it's not hard to follow, and a lot of fun (as long as you can abide by sadistic violence). Cool, jazzy soundtrack too.