Night and Fog in Japan / Cruel Story of Youth May 1, 2009

These early features by Oshima established his reputation as a film radical.

Cited by a Japanese critics' poll as one of the dozen best Japanese films ever made, Night and Fog in Japan was deemed inflammatory by its own studio and quickly pulled from theaters. It's a stylistically audacious account of a leftist celebration quickly descending into psychodrama and recrimination. (107 mins., 35mm)

Oshima's second feature, Cruel Story of Youth, is sometimes referred to as the Breathless of Japan—"as lurid and full-fistedly tabloid as anything by Sam Fuller," as Film Comment recently noted. (96 mins., 35mm)

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