I know a lot of these will have been covered in other threads about Pinky Violence, yakuza and other films.... but even though I'm just a newb here I reckon they deserve a thread of their own....
So to get the ball rolling....
FILM REVIEW: BLOW THE NIGHT! Let's Spend the Night Together (1983)
A.K.A.: 夜をぶっとばせ！
COUNTRY: Japan
DIRECTOR: Chūsei Sone Sonechuusei
LANGUAGE: Japanese
SUBTITLES: None
ASPECT RATIO: TV 1.35:1
DURATION: 109 min
Blow the Night! Let's Spend the Night Together is an extremely rare (in fact, almost totally unknown outside of Japan) 1983 Japanese Docu-drama, shot on 16mm film (hence the films grainy appearance), starring actual Yanki gang members as many of the main characters.
According to Japanese I have spoken to who grew up in the period portrayed in the film, Blow the Night, though somewhat dramatized provides an incredibily accurate, realistic, raw, gritty and no-holds-barred look at the life of members of Japanese street gangs of the late 70s and early 80s.
As a gaijin, one can not help but draw comparisons to the British movies "Scrubbers" and "Scum".... possibly, even the TV series "Grange Hill" in its earliest incarnation.
As previously stated, many of the main characters are portrayed by actual Yanki gang members, and despite their total inexperience in front of a camera, or perhaps because of it, they come across as very natural and 'real' on screen... after all, for the majority of the movie they are really playing themselves.
The basic story is split into two parts... It begins with fifteen-year-old troublemaker Namie Takada moving from the suburbs of Tokyo to a regional city in rural Japan and coming up against the local Yanki gang at her new school.
After some initial suspicion from both sides, she finds her niche and her shaved eyebrows, long Sukeban skirt, red permed hair and general bad ass attitude win her acceptance with the local contingent of young Bosozoku bikers, and she spends her days doing what Yanki did in the early 80s... being bored, arguing with her parents, skipping class to go "tripping on Ampang" (sniffing glue) and telling her teachers to "Kutabare" ('Fuck off')!
This is contrasted with the latter half of the film which takes place over a 24 hour period, as things quickly escalate from teenage boredom and rebellion in the classroom and name calling to an out-an-out riot where the students beat six colours of crap out of their teachers and the Police attempt to lockdown the school.
This is a very interesting movie indeed, and it is a crying shame that it has not previously made its way to the West, but there's still hope. I am sure it would not be too hard to find a fluent Japanese and English speaker to subtitle this movie! If anyone does... PLEASE let me know!
As far as I can ascertain... this film had a brief theatrical release in 1983 and then came out on VHS a year later.... It has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray and has (I assume) fallen into the Public Domain... so I have no problem posting the link to view it online...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCmr4TKyoS0
