Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2007


United Red Army (film)

Buy United Red Army (film) now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




is a 2007 film written, directed and produced by Kji Wakamatsu. It stars Akie Namiki as Hiroko Nagata and Go Jibiki as Tsuneo Mori, the leaders of Japan's leftist paramilitary group, the United Red Army. Akie Namiki was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress at the 2008 Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Story



The film is told in three acts, beginning with a historical background of Japan's student movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, mostly using archive footage and a narrator. The second act follows the formation of the group to their mountain training camps in the southern Japanese Alps. It emphasizes the dogmatic (and eventually hypocritical) bullying of the group by Mori and Nagata, with 12 members being killed. The third act shows the splitting up of the group after two members run off. It follows one group of five members to Karuizawa and a hostage-taking and police standoff known as the Asama-Sans incident.

Production



In order to make the film Wakamatsu mortgaged his home (which he destroyed in the movie) and distributed it himself. The actors were not allowed to wear make-up, had to arrive on set already in costume, and had their agents and managers banned during filming.[http://www.subwaycinema.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67 United Red Army] Subway Cinema. Accessed April 20, 2009 The musical score is by the American composer and musician Jim O'Rourke.

Reception



'United Red Army' has a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 14 critics. The film holds a 67/100 average on Metacritic. It was Jordan Hoffman's choice in IndieWire's 2018 list of the best Japanese films of the 21st century.

References




Buy United Red Army (film) now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 2007



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1110555122.