Young Thugs: Nostalgia (1998)

Young Thugs: Nostalgia (1998). 1h 34m

“This was a pleasant surprise. As a sort of prequel to the film Young Thugs: Innocent Blood, which was a memorable but disjointed tale of teenage waste and wanton self-destruction, I wasnu0026#39;t sure what to expect. But what Takashi Miike delivered was a rather sweet elegy to youth, though still packaged as a u0026quot;crime movieu0026quot; on the cover. Itu0026#39;s really not that at all, but more like Miikeu0026#39;s Radio Days, or a form of Stand by Me (though Radio Days came more to mind, especially as it deals more with sometimes-funny sometimes-not family dysfunction). It follows two of the characters from the first film, Riichi (mostly Richii as I could tell) and Isami, as they meet as adolescents and become friends, collaborating on a model of the Apollo 11 pod. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat I loved about the film was that Miike doesnu0026#39;t shy away from showing how a kid IS affected by what he sees around him, whether itu0026#39;s something small like watching/listening to a softly spoken conversation with his teacher on the phone with her husband (who doesnu0026#39;t treat her very well as we see, and Riichi is sure to give him a piece of his mind, no violence though), or something more blatant like the decay of the marriage between his mousy but loving mother and his powder-keg of a father who flies off at the handle at the drop of a hat (but is he really a mean guy or just crazy? Iu0026#39;d say more the latter). In this environment Riichi absorbs so much, understands some of it, and he doesnu0026#39;t really know heu0026#39;s growing up but he is in smaller ways. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMiike shows a great natural attention to how boys talk and think – being that he was around the age of these kids in its 1969/1970 setting at the time, he knows at least what was on TV, hair-styles, even what was in the kinky strip clubs and porn magazines (thatu0026#39;s a very funny bit I should add, where Ishimau0026#39;s brother is masturbating to an old 60u0026#39;s melody) – and it helps add to the dimension of the story. This is a somehow more mature work from a director who just a year before made the u0026quot;officialu0026quot; version of the Young Thugs saga. But really, you can watch this on its own, it doesnu0026#39;t set up anything important or too memorable outside of personalities that come back in the second film, and there is a keen attention paid to how to move the camera at just the right time, or keep it still to emphasize a good emotional point. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eStrong acting, heartfelt writing, a dynamic sense of time and place, and even a bit of political satire thrown in – somehow, someway, and good- for-him, Riichiu0026#39;s father gets caught up in some disturbances in the streets, facing off like the glorious madman he is against the police and their fire-hoses as shown in TV footage – itu0026#39;s one of the directoru0026#39;s best straightforward comedy/dramas, and shows what he could do outside of straight genre work. And a little Ennio Morricone music goes a long way as well.”