Obayashi captures the erratic and turbulent but sincere energy of youth with this story of a group of rebellious boys who form an uneasy alliance to save a local girl from being sold into prostitution. The film breaks with the somber and tortured critiques of wartime Japan by previous generations to present a positive and anarchic vision of resistance. Shot in one of the busiest phases of his career and chock-full of Obayashi’s silent film-inspired bursts of cinematic imagination, it is also one of the final films produced by the legendary Art Theatre Guild (ATG). Obayashi went on a creative and commercial roll in the mid-1980s, capturing large audiences with filmic experiments that combined arthouse sensibility, avant-garde techniques and pop-cultural cool – used here to explore a dark period of Japanese history. – Alexander Zahlten, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard