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Producer, Director: Watanabe Yoshimitsu Script: Sudo Izuho Editing: Yamada Yozo Effect: Sato Ryosuke Narrator: Uzaki Ryudo Photography: The Delinquents Music: Tanaka Hiroshi 1982 / Color / 16mm / 86 min |
| After working as a reporter and an assistant at a radio station, Watanabe Yoshimitsu, former leader of the bosozoku gang Black Emperor, returned to his old stomping grounds and began to make a film about bosozoku. At the time, he was 21. The teenage members of the bosozoku group, also known as "Thunder" would get into their revamped motorbikes and cars and race around the city. With the police as their enemies, they ran from patrol cars and did other defiant acts. They would put on outlandish clothing and, as a result of fights with rival groups, were very loyal to other members of their own gang. Every Saturday, they would cruise around, vanish and reappear throughout the entire night with no particular goal. However on 1 December 1978, because of provisions in the new highway transport law, the end was at hand for their "season of running wild." The film shows them simply continuing to run wild on this last night before the law is to take effect. Because the spread of bosozoku across the nation in those days engendered so much interest in those days, this fascinating film was distributed widely and played in commercial theaters. Director Watanabe, whose statement appears in the film, died prematurely after finishing work on Transmission ("Densho," 1992), a film shot in Thailand, India, Nepal, and Tibet. (Bosozoku are groups of youths who cruise around city streets late at night on motorbikes and in cars, often revving their engines or racing at high speeds.) |