United Red Army (film)
Encyclopedia
is an award-winning 2007 film written, directed and produced by Kōji Wakamatsu
Koji Wakamatsu
is a Japanese film director who directed such pinku eiga films as and . He also produced Nagisa Ōshima's controversial film In the Realm of the Senses...

. It stars Akie Namiki as Hiroko Nagata
Hiroko Nagata
-Web:...

 and Go Jibiki
Go Jibiki
is a Japanese actor. He is best known for his roles such as Tsuneo Mori in United Red Army.-Actor:*United Red Army, directed by Kōji Wakamatsu *Inju: The Beast in the Shadow, directed by Barbet Schroeder...

 as Tsuneo Mori
Tsuneo Mori
was a Japanese radical leftist. He was born in Osaka and entered the Osaka City University. After some members of the Red Army were arrested by the Japanese police while he escaped from them, several members of the group went to North Korea with Japan Airlines Flight 351 and some formed the...

, the leaders of Japan's leftist paramilitary group the United Red Army
United Red Army
The was a Japanese revolutionary armed group, established on 15 July 1971. It united the Red Army Faction, led in 1971 by Tsuneo Mori and the Maoist Revolutionary Left Wing of the Japanese Communist Party, led by Hiroko Nagata...

. Akie Namiki was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress at the 2008 Asia Pacific Screen Awards
Asia Pacific Screen Awards
The Asia Pacific Screen Awards is an international cultural initiative of the State Government of Queensland, Australia, through Events Queensland, to honour and promote the films, actors, directors, and cultures of Asia-Pacific to a global audience and to realise the objectives of UNESCO to...

.

Story

The film is told in three acts, beginning with a historical background of Japan's student movement of the 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

 and early 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...

, 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
Japanese Alps
The is a series of mountain ranges in Japan that bisect the main island of Honshū. The name was coined by William Gowland, the "Father of Japanese Archaeology," and later popularized by Reverend Walter Weston , an English missionary for whom a memorial plaque is located at Kamikochi, a tourist...

. It emphasizes the dogmatic (and eventually hypocritical) bullying of the group by Mori and Nagata, with 12 members being killed for infractions as small as improperly cleaning a gun, wearing make-up, and kissing. 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-Sansō incident
Asama-Sanso incident
The was a hostage crisis and police siege in a mountain lodge near Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture, Japan that lasted from February 19, 1972 to February 28, 1972...

.

Note that though the movie presents Fusako Shigenobu, leader of the international section of the Red Army, Nihon Sekigun, as a romantic, beautiful young woman (giving her role to the most beautiful actor in the crew) and spares her of any crime or misbehavior during the movie, Wakamatsu does not endorse her behavior, calling her in interviews a superficial and manipulatory girl towards whom he has no sympathy. Kunio Bando, though not given a particular role in the movie nor spared of his responsibilities in the violent deaths, is the Red Army fighter that movie portrays as the most realistic.

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. The musical score is by the American composer and musician Jim O'Rourke
Jim O'Rourke (musician)
Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK