Crazed Fruit (狂った果実)

I recently watched Crazed Fruit, a 1956 film from Japan directed by Ko Nakahira. Think Rebel Without A Cause, but with water skiing, skimpy bathing suits, and bad, bad attitudes.

A hothouse drama about wayward Japanese youth, Crazed Fruit concerns two brothers spending a summer at the beach and competing for the same girl - with tragic consequences. As reviewer Michael Buening (allmovie.com) notes, the film...

"...helped establish a post-World War II cultural template of first-world pampered, aimless, casually self-destructive youth - where the young women dangle their sexuality like a plaything and the boys store up puberty-driven reserves of testosterone until they explode with frustrated violence."

Like other classic youth films, Crazed Fruit caused outrage and hysteria among Japanese housewives, teachers, and politicians. The film may seem relatively tame by today's standards, but the finale still packs a dramatic punch. Crazed Fruit remains notable (and watchable) for its sharp cinemtography, its depiction of affluent Japanese youth just ten years after the war, a haunting jazzy-Hawaiian-esque score, and for being the break-out role for Ishihara Yujiro - as a long-legged bad boy in trunks.