Furyo shonen

From the time his career began in the late 1950s, Susumu Hani (*1928) broke with traditional Japanese filmmaking by anchoring his films in the present and combining documentary methods with avant-garde aesthetics. His first feature film, FURYO SHONEN, was a major success in Japan. Shot in a reform school and featuring former detainees, the young actors improvised their dialogue to a script based on writings from juvenile delinquents. The old spirit of totalitarianism lives on not only in the institution—which, like a military training camp, is all drills, discipline, and obedience—but also in the youths themselves, who rebel against society yet operate like their feudalistic fathers amongst themselves.