The Films of Yoshishige Yoshida (1960-1961) Volume 1 - NTSC - English Subtitled (3 Disc)

Each disc is English Subtitled
Japanese audio 2.0

(Disc 1) Good For Nothing [Rokudenashi]- 1960 – B/W 16×9

Yoshida was propelled into the forefront of Shochiku’s directorial ranks by his energetic first feature, a brisk and angry entry in the studio’s highly popular cycle of taiyozoku films which focused, for the most part, on frustrated juvenile delinquents. Yoshida’s original script is centered on a group of listless middle-class high school students whose fantasies of sex and violence exert an unhealthy hold upon their imagination. The stakes of the boys’ depraved playacting rise dangerously, spiraling into a deadly roulette of crime and betrayal. A stylistically assured and striking debut film with overt nods to early Godard, Good for Nothing’s dynamic black and white cinematography announced the non-conventional mise-en-scène and fluid, expressive camera movement which would become an important signature of Yoshida’s later films.

(Disc 2) Blood is Dry [Chi wa kawaiteru](1960) B/W 16×9

Yoshida’s second Shochiku assignment turned away from the studio’s dominant focus on troubled youth and generational conflict in order to paint a darker and more despairing portrait of society in a state of moral collapse. Taking sharp aim at Japan’s harshly competitive corporate culture, Blood Thirsty follows a hapless salaryman whose desperate gesture to prevent the mass layoff of his colleagues is ruthlessly and absurdly exploited by his company for a deeply ironic advertising campaign. Based on one of Yoshida’s original stories, Blood Thirsty is a formally daring and edgy film whose withering critique of corporate capitalism and the alienation of the working force remains particularly urgent today.

(Disc 3) Bitter End to a Sweet Night (1961) B/W 16×9

Yoshida’s third film is the story Jiro is a sales clerk at a department store.
He’s pretty dedicated and goes on doing his daily duties diligently until he meets Harumi (Teruyo Yamagami) a waitress in a small hole in a wall restaurant. Jiro frequents a bar that’s run by Soko (Michiko Saga) the daughter of the owner of the department store he works in. Soko is looking for a charismatic hostess to work at her bar, and Jiro out of kindness introduces Harumi to Soko. Harumi comes to shack with Jiro but she won’t let him touch her. She’s just free loading off of him until she meets Hondo (Osamu Takizawa) a wealthy owner of a chemical plant. Hondo offers her a place to live in an apartment. Jiro also meets Oka (Takamaru Sasaki), also a chemical plant owner who’s business is going downhill. He meets his widowed daughter Masae (Hiroko Sugita). Now circulating among the rich set, Jiro feels inferior about his status and decides to climb up the social ladder by going to bed first with Masae, and then Soko, but he still has something going with Harumi.