Youth of the Beast(HKAFF 2017)

After toiling for years making B-movies for the Nikkatsu Corporation, Suzuki Seijun hit his stride with the violent and inventive Yakuza thriller Youth of the Beast. Longtime Suzuki collaborator Shishido Joe stars as Joji Mizuno, a mysterious stranger who, motives unknown, moves in on a pair of rival Tokyo gangs and pits them against one another. Generally ignored upon release, Youth of the Beast would nevertheless be hailed years later as Suzuki’s breakthrough, revealing the director’s irreverent, satiric and sometimes unfathomable sensibilities to be worthy of celebration and study. Proudly (and accurately) described in its original theatrical trailer as a “hard-boiled masterpiece”.