Boy

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Boy

1970,

1h 36m,

Drama

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Watchlist

Watchlist

100%

6 Reviews

Tomatometer

89%

100+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

100%

Tomatometer

6 Reviews

89%

Popcornmeter

100+ Ratings

Traveling from one Japanese urban center to the next, a family of grifters has developed a scheme to swindle gullible drivers out of their money. The father (Fumio Watanabe) convinces his young son (Tetsuo Abe) to run into the sides of cars on the street, tricking the drivers into thinking they've just hit a child. By threatening police involvement, the father gets his marks to pay him off, but the boy is increasingly resentful of his line of work.

Don Druker

Chicago Reader

Oct 16, 2014

Oshima, the Japanese filmmaker most often compared with Godard, treats the material in a matter-of-fact manner that serves to heighten the dramatic impact and to create one of the most interesting films about children ever made.

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Budd Wilkins

Slant Magazine

Jan 15, 2014

3.5/4

Nagisa Oshima and screenwriter Tsutomu Tamura encourage empathy without requiring emotionalism.

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Keith Uhlich

Time Out

Jan 14, 2014

5/5

Happiness and contentment are not in the cards for Toshio, and shima never sentimentalizes his existence nor lets him off the hook for his crimes. But still we feel, deeply and profoundly, for this lost soul.

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Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Jun 28, 2017

B+

An acerbic coming-of-age tale about a family of con artists faking car accidents and blackmailing the drivers to pay them off.

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Hermione S

Jun 18, 2017

Sad, but a well made film. A great time capsule to boot.

Draco G

Jun 11, 2017

A grim depressingly done view of the lower classes and street people in 1960s Japan told in a starkly realistic way, based on a true story. The focus is a family of drifting scam artists who make use of their child in a dangerous way that leaves him open to injury, pretending to be hit by cars, so that they can collect cash from the drivers for not going to the police. This shows what happens to children in cases where their is no social safety net for the maintenance of families, and no one standing guard over children. It is a stark reminder today of what children will be exposed to in a time when in this country, the government is intent on cutting that safety net that we have now away.

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Nagisa Ôshima

Director

Fumio Watanabe

The father

Tetsuo Abe

The Boy

Akiko Koyama

The stepmother

Tsuyoshi Kinoshita

The little brother

Masataka Hara

Writer

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Synopsis

Traveling from one Japanese urban center to the next, a family of grifters has developed a scheme to swindle gullible drivers out of their money. The father (Fumio Watanabe) convinces his young son (Tetsuo Abe) to run into the sides of cars on the street, tricking the drivers into thinking they've just hit a child. By threatening police involvement, the father gets his marks to pay him off, but the boy is increasingly resentful of his line of work.

Director: Nagisa Ôshima
Producer: Masayuki Nakajima, Takuji Yamaguchi
Screenwriter: Masataka Hara, Nagisa Ôshima, Mamoru Sasaki, Takeshi Tamura
Distributor: Grove Press
Production Co: Sozosha, Art Theatre Guild
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Japanese
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 9, 1970, Wide
Runtime: 1h 36m
Sound Mix: Mono

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