"Crazed Fruit" is a Japanese film about two brothers and their love, or perhaps lust, for a young lady. The brothers are both about 18-20 and are spending the summer at the beach with their friends. The older brother is more worldly and wild. The younger is quite innocent and sweet. One day the pair are out in their boat and come upon a lady struggling in the water. They bring her aboard and take her back to shore. Several days later, the younger brother meets the lady at the train station and asks her out on a date. She agrees but instead of telling him where she lives, says she'll meet him where the brothers dropped her off--on the rocks by the water. Now this SHOULD have clued him in that something was wrong, but the young guy was rather naive.

For some time, the younger brother and the lady are quite happy together. She still is pretty vague about where she lives. When the older brother puts two and two together, he knows she's hiding something. He also is VERY infatuated with her and begins sleeping with her. This goes on for some time and the younger brother has no idea his brother is a selfish jerk--and the same for his girlfriend. But there's more to the story--and even more secrets. And, it all culminates in a tragic triangle.

This movie is well made (aside from a very badly used rear screen projection at 35 minutes into the film) and interesting. While I liked the film, I did not love it. Interesting and tragic but not exactly a must-see.

What a fascinating film this is. Elements of it surprised me for 1956, and in particular for a Japanese movie. It seems to me a forerunner of the French New Wave, and that this archetypal 'Sun Tribe' effort represents an even bigger departure from traditional Japanese cinema at the time than those films would be to the French. No wonder François Truffaut was such a fan of it.

The story is straightforward - two brothers fall for the same woman - but this is a film about tone, and context. Everything about it screams post-war, disaffected youth. A group of young men are bored, critical of traditional ways, and looking for good times - and young ladies. The younger of the two brothers (Masahiko Tsugawa) has an innocence about him, and falls for a pretty woman (Mie Kitahara) without realizing she's already married. The drama deepens when his older brother (Yujiro Ishihara) begins putting the moves on her behind his back.

The openness with which Kitahara's sexuality is displayed is a little shocking, though there is a grace to it, and it's refreshing to see. She deceives her American husband, and enjoys being the center of attention at a party. With the younger brother she needs to provide encouragement for him to make love to her, in one scene moving his hands up on to her breast. With the older brother, she gives way to his forceful overtures, even after saying 'no' initially. If that sort of thing is a trigger to you, you may want to avoid this one, as it also has the young men competing early on to see who can bring the hottest girl to a party, and other testosterone-fueled chatter. In general, the characters are hard to like, which may also be a turn-off. On the other hand, that's part of the point, and the film shows a reckless and sexually carefree youth in ways that are less inhibited than Hollywood at the time.

All of the principal actors turn in solid performances, and Masumi Okada is quite debonair in a supporting role. Mie Kitahara is quite pretty, and it's interesting that she would marry Ishihara, the actor who plays the older brother, just four years later. There is a little unevenness in the shots director Kô Nakahira captures - some are just beautiful, while others seem low-budget - but it's an impressive first film, and all the more so as it was a few years ahead of the French New Wave (e.g. Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958),Truffaut's 400 Blows (1959),Godard's Breathless (1960),etc). It seems to me the film ought to be better known.

Bold, bright and breezy, influential film that broke, not only with Japanese cinema traditions but touched on many controversial areas, hitherto not depicted in that country. Glorious b/w cinematography mixing medium, long and extreme close-up shots and giving the look of a French new wave movie and anticipating Goddard's 'Breathless' by a couple of years. A seemingly simple tale of a group of teenage boys having fun with themselves, drink, boats and girls, this has much more sinister undertones. The young girl at the centre of everything is married to an older man and an American at that. Whilst not explicit the obvious references to sexual activity outside of marriage is clear and very casual way it is portrayed must have scandalised the contemporary viewer, the older viewer at least. Difficult to do the film justice without including spoilers but be assured this is well worth seeing and if not as startling a film now as it must have seemed it does have the most amazing and startling ending.