Crazed Fruit

Two brothers compete for the amorous favors of a young woman during a seaside summer of gambling, boating, and drinking in this seminal "sun tribe" (taiyozoku) film from director Ko Nakahira. Adapted from the controversial novel by Shintaro Ishihara-and critically savaged for its lurid portrayal of the postwar sexual revolution among Japan’s young and privileged-Crazed Fruit is an anarchic outcry against tradition and the older generation.


Overview
In this powerful drama with comic undertones from Japan, a lazy summer by the beach develops a sinister undercurrent when two brothers' (Masahiko Tsugawa and Yujiro Ishihara) hedonistic pursuits of alcohol and gambling are interrupted by the arrival of a beautiful young woman, Eri (Mie Kitahara). The younger brother quickly becomes infatuated with the girl, but the older brother also develops an attraction to her, and becomes determined to take her away -- even after learning she's already married. Controversial upon initial release for its portrayal of delinquent Japanese youth, Kurutta Kajitsu (also known as Crazed Fruit and Juvenile Jungle) has since been acknowledged as a trailblazing work in the Japanese "taiyozoku" (sun tribe) subgenre; it was the first feature for celebrated filmmaker Ko Nakahira.


All Movie Guide
Ko Nakahira's hothouse drama about wayward Japanese youth combines existential angst similar to '50s teen art like Rebel Without a Cause and Catcher in the Rye, high-contrast/sharp-angled black-and-white cinematography by Shigeyoshi Mine, a screeching jazz score, and minimalist sound design to produce a distinctly modern masterwork. Story-wise, it helped establish a post-World War II cultural template of first-world pampered, aimless, casually self-destructive youth -- where the young women dangle their sexuality like a plaything and the boys store up puberty-driven reserves of testosterone until they explode with frustrated violence. To Japan, it depicted youths rejecting their elders' values for Western or American-style consumerism. In its filmmaking and themes, Crazed Fruit also foreshadows the festering political agitation of the '60s and international New Wave cinema. Though the onscreen action may seem constrained by today's standards, the subtext is dripping with sexual intensity. Rail-thin Masahiko Tsugawa convincingly embodies the awkward innocence and baffled hormonal urges of 16-year-old Haruji, manipulated by his older brother, Natsuhisa Yujiro Ishihara, over the love of the deceptively "innocent" Eri Mie Kitahara. Partially based on this film, Yujiro became a major heartthrob and tough rebel icon of the "Sun Tribe" subculture. The fever pitch of the action may seem overdone, but it's at least consistent with the self-centered histrionics of the teen characters and Nakahira engrossingly builds from languid summer rhythms to a grotesque finale. The story is adapted from a novel by Shintaro Ishihara Yujiro's older brother, who also was a Sun Tribe figurehead and later a prominent nationalist politician and governor of Tokyo.