When the teachers are as corrupt as the students are disruptive, society is going to wind up with a complex set of problems. Classroom of Terror (暴力教室, Boryoku Kyoshitsu) is, in some ways exactly what it sounds like – delinquents! Sex, drugs, fighting! etc but also subverts these aspects of the bad teen movie by turning the camera right back on the adults who are perpetuating this world of unruly adolescents. An early entry for action star to be Yusaku Matsuda, Classroom of Terror sees him cast in a recognisably manly role though one with a greater degree of nobility.
Mizoguchi is a rookie teacher at an ordinary high school with a falling reputation. Behind his back, the established teachers are virtually taking bets on how long he’s going to last with this “difficult” class that’s giving everyone grief. However, Mizoguchi is a tough, generally cool kind of guy, and he’s able to stand up to this rambunctious group of teenage boys pretty well.
That said, there’s a subset of “bousouzoku” biker gang kids in the school which seems intent on dominating not just the other kids but the entire infrastructure of the academy too. Led by Kitajo, the “Sidewinders” wear identical leather jackets with a snake on the back and all have rockabilly hairstyles which match their Brando-esque The Wild One attitudes. Delinquent doesn’t quite cover their activities and Kitajo in particular is not above seducing the principle’s daughter as part of a blackmail plot or even revenge raping the younger sister of an opponent. However, the kids are not the bad guys here as there’s an even bigger scandal going on in the school’s administration department and the Sidewinders, with Mizoguchi’s help, might be the only way to stop it.
Classroom of Terror mixes a number of genres together and then buckles them onto a typical kids gone wild delinquent movie. In actuality it has more in common with a yakuza crime pic as it turns out Mizoguchi is more or less a stooge brought in by the powers at be to quell rebellion but then realises he’s been working for the “bad guys” and switches sides. The Sidewinders operate more like rival gang, the area’s underdogs who definitely aren’t “good guys” but might be better than the corrupt administration that’s currently in place.
Of course, these guys are just teenagers and this is a school, not the back streets of some shady part of town. Mizoguchi’s class is boys only and extremely disruptive – bombarding a female teacher with paper aeroplanes made out of their test papers, developing a zip wire system to pass each other porn and just generally refusing to conform to any kind of expected behaviour. Kitajo in particular is seen to be rebelling against all kinds of authority thanks to an oppressive home environment controlled by his strict and violent father. When the older generation is shown to be corrupt as in the plot to defraud the school of money at the expense of its pupils, it’s the duty of youth to rebel and their refusal to follow the path that has been set down for them is in no way surprising.
A typical ‘70s exploitation picture, Classroom of Terror displays all the genre’s hallmarks from the swooping handheld camera shots, whip pans and zooms to the funky soundtrack. However, it does also fall into the unpleasantness associated with the lower end of these kinds of films in its use of rape as a plot device which takes on an unsavoury and salacious quality though the scenes themselves are not particularly graphic. Likewise, there is a fair amount of explicit nudity in the first half of the film during the seduction plot of the teenage daughter of the principal which is played for all its worth. Though not as sleazy as other examples of films of this kind, Classroom of Terror has a necessarily male viewpoint which runs close to generalised misogyny.
Perhaps most notable for providing early leading roles for Matsuda and also for Hiroshi Tachi who plays the leader of the Sidewinders and was at that time the lead singer of a popular rock group, The Cools, Classroom of Terror is a fairly typical youth gone wild movie though one which attempts to justify youth rebellion by pointing out the oppressive and hypocritical actions of the older generation. That said, it’s never entirely on youth’s side and the boys are very definitely unpleasant and out of control. Though the use of rape as a tactic is not exactly supported, it isn’t condemned either, rather just accepted as something that happens – but happens to men, largely, who lose face when “their” women are “damaged” by their enemies. Unpleasant yet often exciting in execution, Classroom of Terror is an interesting mix of exploitation genres though one which perhaps leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Unsubbed trailer:
Yusaku Matsuda was to adopt arguably his most famous role in 1979 – that of the unconventional private detective Shunsaku Kudo in the iconic television series Detective Story (unconnected with the film of the same name he made in 1983), but Murder in the Doll House (乱れからくり, Midare Karakuri) made the same year also sees him stepping into the shoes of a more conventional, literature inspired P.I.
Where oh where are the put upon citizens of martial arts movies supposed to grab a quiet cup of tea and some dim sum? Definitely not at Boss Cheng’s teahouse as all hell is about to break loose in there when it becomes the centre of a turf war in gloomy director Kuei Chih-Hung’s social minded modern day kung-fu movie The Teahouse (成記茶樓, Cheng Ji Cha Lou).
Though he might not exactly be a household name outside of Japan, the late Yusaku Matsuda was one of the most important mainstream stars of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Had he not died at the tragically young age of 40 after refusing chemotherapy for bladder cancer to star in what would become his final film, Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, he’d undoubtedly have continued to move on from the action genre in which he’d made his name. No Grave For Us (俺達に墓はない, Oretachi ni Haka wa Nai) is fairly typical of the kinds of films he was making in the late ‘70s as he once again plays a cool, streetwise hoodlum mixed up in a crazy crime world where no one can be trusted.
John Woo is best known in the West for his “heroic bloodshed” movies from the ‘80s in which melancholy tough guys shoot bullets at each other in beautiful ways. However, he had a long and varied career even before which began with Shaw Brothers and a stint in traditional martial arts movies. What often gets over looked outside of Woo’s native Hong Kong is his many comedies, of which The Pilferer’s Progress (AKA Money Crazy, 发钱寒, Fa Qian Han) is one of his most successful.
Sogo Ishii (now Gakuryu Ishii) was one of the foremost filmmakers in Japan’s punk movement of the late ‘70s and ‘80s though his later work drifted further away from his youthful subculture roots. Perhaps best known for his absurdist look at modern middle class society in The Crazy Family or his noisy musical epics Crazy Thunder Road and Burst City, Ishii’s first feature length film is a quieter, if no less energetic, effort.
Caught in a moment of transition in more ways than one, Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (書を捨てよ町へ出よう, Sho o Suteyo Machi e Deyo) is a clarion call to apathetic youth in the dying days of ‘60s youthful rebellion. Neatly bridging the gap between post-war avant-garde and the punk cinema of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Terayama experiments gleefully with a psychedelic, surreal rock musical which is first and foremost a sensory rather than a cerebral experience.
Aside from the original 1960 version of The Housemaid (and this perhaps only because of its modern “remake”), mid 20th century Korean Cinema has been severely neglected overseas. Ha Kil-jong’s The March of Fools (바보들의 행진, Babodeul-ui haengjin) is almost unknown abroad but consistently tops Korean lists of the country’s best cinema and has been both enormously influential on later filmmakers and fondly remembered by audiences.
In writing the original novel which inspired Heavenly Homecoming to Stars, Choi In-ho stated that he wanted to tell the story of “a woman whom a city killed”. The novel itself was first serialised in a newspaper where it quickly became a must read and popular discussion point among readers of all ages. It’s perhaps less surprising then that this completely radical film adaptation by first time director Lee Jang-ho proved to be the big cinema hit of 1974. A new “youth culture” movement was beginning inspired by social and political developments from overseas and there was a growing appetite for films and novels which were equally revolutionary. Heavenly Homecoming to Stars managed to provide this but also, crucially, was able to appeal to older age ranges too thanks to its re-imagining of classical melodrama.
Ettore Scola, one of the most celebrated filmmakers of Italian cinema in the late 20th century, returned to one of the country’s darkest moments for the film which is often regarded as his masterpiece – A Special Day (Una Giornata Particolare). Set on one particular day in 1938 when Mussolini rolled out the red carpet for his fascist brother in arms, Adolf Hitler, it focusses less on this “historic” meeting of “likeminded” leaders of state than it does on two small figures each lonely and excluded from the festivities for very different reasons.
Windows on Worlds 