is a

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Ja ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Sun Tribe film directed by

Seijun Suzuki , born (24 May 1923 – 13 February 2017), was a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are known for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility. He made 40 predo ...

and starring

Tamio Kawachi was a Japanese actor. Career Kawachi was a student at Kanto Gakuin University when Yujiro Ishihara, one of his neighbors in Zushi, Kanagawa, invited him to join the Nikkatsu studio. He made his debut in '' A Slope in the Sun'' (1958) playing ...

and Yoshiko Yatsu in her film debut. The story follows Jirō, a rebellious high schooler, in his

sadomasochistic Sadomasochism ( ) is the giving and receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation. Practitioners of sadomasochism may seek sexual pleasure from their acts. While the terms sadist and masochist refer ...

and criminal misadventures, specifically as they relate to his girlfriend, mother and her lover. The film was produced and distributed by the

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

Company. ''

Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

'' called it an early masterpiece in Suzuki's career.

Plot

On sweltering summer day, a gang of high school delinquents rove through

Shinjuku is a special ward in Tokyo, Japan. It is a major commercial and administrative centre, housing the northern half of the busiest railway station in the world (Shinjuku Station) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, the administration ...

. One, Jirō Sugita, harasses one of the girls, leading to an argument. Jirō leaves the group and returns home, where he lives with his single mother, Misayo. Misayo is the mistress of Keigo Nanbara, a businessman, and Jiro's disapproval of their relationship and feelings of jealousy leave him constantly at odds with both of them. Jirō gets in a fight with Nanbara, tears violently through the house, and steals money from Misayo. Toshimi Tani, a girl from the gang, acts on her crush on Jirō and the two initiate an intimate relationship, though Jirō is decidedly cooler towards the affair than Toshimi. At Misayo's request, Nanbara lectures Jirō about his disreputable lifestyle and tries to set him straight, but is met with mockery. The following day, Nanbara and Misayo and Jirō and his friends go separately to the same

Zushi is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. As of June 2012, the city has an estimated population of 58,087, and a population density of 3,350 per km². The total area is . Geography Zushi is located at the head of Miura Peninsula, facin ...

beach resort. Etsuko, a college student who desperately needs money for an abortion, leads Nanbara to an empty summer home under the pretense of connecting him with Jirō, who he has been searching for in order to make peace. When they arrive, she strips to her undergarments and reveals her real motive was to sell herself to him to obtain money to pay for the abortion. The kindhearted Nanbara refuses her advances but gives her the money she needs. At that moment, Jirō bursts in with his mother in tow and gleefully exposes Nanbara as a philandering liar. However, though Misayo is upset, her genuine love for Nanbara is unshaken, and she begs him to stay with her instead. Enraged and wracked with guilt, Jirō and Toshimi flee and steal a car. Nanbara pursues them; Etsuko leaves with the money, but is waylaid by a group of delinquents who steal it from her. Nanbara finally catches up to Jirō in a hotel room, where he continues to try and reason with Jirō even as the boy alternately mocks him and kisses Toshimi in front of him. When Nanbara is undeterred, Jirō explodes and brutally assaults him with a wrench. Believing he has killed him Jirō and Toshimi escape in the car, and with the police in pursuit, Jirō begins driving at reckless speed until Toshimi screams in fear, begging to be let out of the car. He seems to have a change of heart, but then deliberately drives into the path of an oncoming truck. The moment before he dies, he screams out "Mom!" Distraught and in pain, Etsuko collapses at the entrance to the subway and falls down a staircase. She is taken to the same hospital as Nanbara, who survived the assault, and even in his gravely wounded state begs the police to forgive Jirō for his actions. Etsuko also survives, but has a miscarriage. The next day at a local bar the youngsters frequented, a journalist for a disreputable paper tells the owner that Jirō is dead. He is disheartened with the current youth culture, but knows that the salacious details of the story will be eaten up by the public. Musing over how he will write the story, he considers starting it with "Today, goodwill between people can't exist anywhere. Everything goes wrong."

Production

In 1956,

Studios made three popular films in the Sun Tribe genre, focused on a contemporary

youth subculture Youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Youth subcultures ...

noted for their affinity for beach life and jazz music and their progressive attitudes toward sex. The films met with public outcry for moral reasons, and a fourth production was halted at the behest of the

Eirin The , also known as , is Japan's self-regulatory film regulator. Eirin was established on the model of the now-defunct American Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association's Production Code Administration in June 1949, succeeding t ...

, or Motion Picture Code of Ethics Committee. However, the genre later resurged and included ''Everything Goes Wrong''. The film was based on the author Akira Ichijō's story ''High Teen Mistress'' ( ''Hai tīn jōfu''), adapted for the screen by Seiji Hoshikawa. Former

fashion model A model is a person with a role either to promote, display or advertise commercial products (notably fashion clothing in fashion shows) or to serve as a visual aid for people who are creating works of art or to pose for photography. Thoug ...

Yoshiko Yatsu made her feature film debut. Hit singer

Kyu Sakamoto was a Japanese singer and actor. He was best known outside Japan for his international hit song "Ue o Muite Arukō" (known as " Sukiyaki" in English-speaking markets), which was sung in Japanese and sold over 13 million copies. It reached numbe ...

has a cameo appearance, performing a musical number. The film employed an improvisational jazz score and free-flowing camera work in a semi-documentary style. Production was completed on .

Release

The film was released by

in Japan on October 8, 1960. The film journal ''

'' posited that any deficiencies in the story were overshadowed by

's unique directorial style. They placed it in the

Japanese New Wave The is a group of loosely-connected Japanese filmmakers during the late 1950s and into the 1970s. Although they did not make up a coherent movement, these artists shared a rejection of traditions and conventions of classical Japanese cinema in ...

and called it an early masterpiece in Suzuki's oeuvre. In writing his book on Japanese filmmakers, Chris D. called it "A find, and highly recommended." He noted in it common elements with

Nagisa Oshima NaGISA (Natural Geography in Shore Areas or Natural Geography of In-Shore Areas) is an international collaborative effort aimed at inventorying, cataloguing, and monitoring biodiversity of the in-shore area. So named for the Japanese word "nagisa ...

's own Sun Tribe film ''

Cruel Story of Youth is a 1960 Japanese film directed by Nagisa Ōshima, starring Yusuke Kawazu and Miyuki Kuwano as teenage delinquents and lovers. It is Ōshima's second feature film and is known for its elements of Japanese '' nuberu bagu''. The film won the 1960 ...

'' (also 1960) but found ''Everything Goes Wrong'' to be less pretentious. Nikkatsu released ''Everything Goes Wrong'' on DVD in Japan on May 21, 2005. It included a photo gallery and the original film trailer. The release was done in conjunction with the release of three other films directed by

and in anticipation of the following year's 50th anniversary of his directorial debut.

Soundtrack

On February 23, 2007, the Japanese label Think! Records reissued the soundtrack on CD as a part of its ''Cine Jazz'' series, which featured 1960s Nikkatsu Action film scores. The music was derived from Keitarō Miho's film score. Tracks 29 and 30 are bonus tracks.

Track listing

References

External links

* * *
Everything Goes Wrong
' at the

Japanese Movie Database The , more commonly known as simply JMDb, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database but lists only those films initially released in Japan. Y. ...

{{Seijun Suzuki 1960 films Japanese black-and-white films 1960s Japanese-language films 1960 drama films Films based on short fiction Films directed by Seijun Suzuki Nikkatsu films 1960s Japanese films