Overview

A leading postwar Japanese film critic and theorist who co-founded the seminal film magazine Eiga Hihyo (Film Criticism) in 1957, Eizo Yamagiwa made his directorial debut with this independent feature—long thought lost until a negative was recently discovered—about a group of idle bourgeois students known as the “Roppongi Tribe” (Roppongi zoku). Depicting the resignation and nihilism of the postwar generation in the years following the Anpo Treaty conflicts through a coming-of-age narrative, Yamagiwa offers sharp criticism of the prevalent characterizations of Japan's new youth offered by Nikkatsu's taiyozoku (“Sun Tribe”) films and the New Wave at large.

Cast

Kōji Matsubara

Kenji Nomura

Terumi Hoshi

Michi Makino

Takashi Fujiki

Yoji Nakaoka

Yūko Kashiwagi

Akemi

Harue Tone

Michi's mother

Fumiko Miyata

Nurse

Yūji Hori