Director: Senkichi Taniguchi
Studio: Toho
Cast: Kenji Sugawara, Akira Kubo, Chishū Ryū, Kyoko Aoyama, Kyoko Anzai, Yasuko Nakata, Tatsuyoshi Ehara, Yu Fujiki, Akihiko Hirata, Makoto Satō, et al.
Availability: Theater screenings and possible television broadcasts within the past 5 years. No home media availability.
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Let's look at an old, obscure movie with Akira Kubo in it.
Because of its generic title (a less poetic translation could be something like "Bad Boy"1, and it's far from the only movie called that), this one is a little difficult to find information about online. Even more difficult to find is information about the work it was adapted to the screen from, so that's what I'll cover first and foremost. Shigeru Nishimura's Humorless Diary of Youth [Warawanai seishun], released the previous year, formed the basis for the film. Nishimura seems to have had a rough go of it as a young man, first losing both of his parents before the age of 10, then landing in a sanatorium for tuberculosis treatment in his 20s (during which time he wrote his first novel), and eventually becoming a staff member at a juvenile welfare facility. Much of what Nishimura wrote centered around juvenile delinquents and orphans. Nishimura also wrote in opposition to nuclear testing and war.
In November of 1955, the work was adapted into a stage play by Haiyuza Theater Company. It ran for only just under two weeks and I can find virtually no information about it, but here's a page with some names of the staff and here's an auction listing of a pamphlet showing the names of the cast. Note that there is very small text in the lower right-hand corner of the cast page mentioning that the work will subsequently be made into a movie by Toho.
Other names involved in the production of the film are some of our Toho frequent fliers: Tomoyuki Tanaka as producer, Senkichi Taniguchi as director, a young Kihachi Okamoto as assistant director, and Kazuo Yamada of The Vampire Moth as cinematographer.
The work seems to have been partially autobiographical, with the main character's name (Shigeo Nishida, played by Kenji Sugawara) bearing very obvious similarity to Nishimura's own. The film is set at a reform school for juvenile delinquents that houses a lot of war orphans, and Nishida, a teacher, was a former resident himself. As a teacher he tries to help the boys at the reformatory but they respond poorly. From synopses, there seems to be a story about multiple women in Nishida's life having to turn to prostitution running in parallel to the story of the boys at the reformatory. Akira Kubo and Tatsuyoshi Ehara play who I assume are the "leaders" of the delinquent boys, since their characters' names are the only ones mentioned in synopses. Hirata plays a character named Miyashita; given his age at the time I'm guessing he probably played a staff member as opposed to a resident at the reformatory, but who knows. His name is on posters, so he must have had some kind of role, but I can't find anything out about it. This was also Makoto Satō's debut film.
1 Nishimura's fifth novel was titled Furyō shōnen after the film adaptation of Warawanai seishun, but this seems to have largely been a name-recognition strategy; the content of the novel was completely different.
The work seems to have been partially autobiographical, with the main character's name (Shigeo Nishida, played by Kenji Sugawara) bearing very obvious similarity to Nishimura's own. The film is set at a reform school for juvenile delinquents that houses a lot of war orphans, and Nishida, a teacher, was a former resident himself. As a teacher he tries to help the boys at the reformatory but they respond poorly. From synopses, there seems to be a story about multiple women in Nishida's life having to turn to prostitution running in parallel to the story of the boys at the reformatory. Akira Kubo and Tatsuyoshi Ehara play who I assume are the "leaders" of the delinquent boys, since their characters' names are the only ones mentioned in synopses. Hirata plays a character named Miyashita; given his age at the time I'm guessing he probably played a staff member as opposed to a resident at the reformatory, but who knows. His name is on posters, so he must have had some kind of role, but I can't find anything out about it. This was also Makoto Satō's debut film.
This is unfortunately quite an obscure one. Thanks to its screening at Showa Nerd Mecca Laputa Asagaya, we have this very tiny still photo, showing Akira Kubo and another actor (possibly Kenji Sugawara, given his prominence in the film) mud-wrestling.
Another tiny wee still comes from cinemanavi.com, again showing Kubo and Sugawara.
Oddly, the only actual promotional still I could find for the film is just a picture of Chishū Ryū's character. (We know it's from this film because the auction listing shows the title written in pencil on the back.)
Two separate Toho News pamphlets seem to have been produced for the film. These sort of pamphlets usually came with a text side that would give a synopsis, some hype, and the staff/cast, but unfortunately I can't find clear enough pictures to be able to translate any of the text. A Toho Studio Mail flyer was also published, but again, pictures are too grainy to make any of it out.
Speaking of screenings, there are a few that I can confirm: three at Laputa in 2010, 2017, and 2019, and two in 2014 at the unfortunately now closed Kichijoji Baus Theater and Shibuya's Cinema Vera. There must have been other screenings or television broadcasts because Filmarks also has reviews from 2023 and 2024. Reviews are a bit lacking in detail but seem generally quite positive, and one reviewer links the film to Taniguchi's previous film (also starring Hirata) No Response from Car 33. It is very reassuring to at least know that prints exist and are in good enough condition to be viewed.
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| you and I could have been seeing Furyō shōnen here if not for stupid inconsequential reasons, such as "not being in Japan in March of 2014" |
Twitter user @honehone_man_7 gave us some pictures of Sugawara and Satō just a few months ago. From the quality of the pictures, these seem to have been taken from some kind of satellite TV broadcast. I'm guessing if it was broadcast on television it would have been on SkyPerfect, probably on the Satellite Theater channel, since that's where these kinds of things usually get shown.
That's about all I can give you. This film is still being viewed, and prints survive, which is more than I can say for a lot of things I talk about here, but it's frustrating that I can't see it (at least not now). As always, though, if I find a copy of the film or more information about it, I will post updates.
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