THE FILMS THA
DIRECTOR Koji Wakamatsu
WRITERS Koji Wakamatsu, Asako Otomo
PRODUCERS Koji Wakamatsu,
Noriko Ozaki, Asako Otomo
CINEMATOGRAPHERS
T GOT AWA
Yoshihisa Toda, Tomohiko Tsuji
MUSIC Jim O'Rourke
CAST Akie Namiki, Arata, Takaki Uda,
Soran Tamoto, Maki Sakai, Anri Ban,
Y
Go Jibiki, Shima Onishi
United Red Army
Jitsuroku Rengo Sekigun: Asama Sanso E No Michi
Japan 190 minutes
Japanese with English subtitles
While there has been no shortage of films devoted to the Vietnam-
era student radical groups in the U.S. and Europe, the movement’s
parallel Japanese exponents have remained largely unknown in the
West. Until now. This obsessively detailed docudrama from director
KOJI WAKAMATSU
Koji Wakamatsu—a storied figure in Japan’s soft-core erotic cinema—
BORN: >«>˜ÊUÊApril 1,1936
traces the rise and fall of the titular militant organization from its
idealistic formation to its violent implosion during a 10-day standoff
with police in 1972.
Conceived as a corrective to an earlier, authorized film version of
those events told from the perspective of the cops, Wakamatsu’s
underground epic—for which the filmmaker mortgaged and then
destroyed (on camera) his own home—employs a liberal blend
of documentary footage and bracing, sometimes intensely brutal
dramatized reenactments to immerse us in the psyches of the radicals
themselves, as they turn first against one another and finally the
invading authorities. The nail-biting tension is enhanced by an original
psychedelic rock score from Sonic Youth’s Jim O’Rourke.
— Scott Foundas
'%%.Adh6c\ZaZh;^ab;Zhi^kVa 143
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