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Good-for-Nothing
(Rokudenashi)

Screening on Film
Directed by Kiju Yoshida.
With Masahiko Tsugawa, Yusuke Kawazu, Hizuru Takachiho.
Japan, 1960, 35mm, black & white, 88 min.
Japanese with English subtitles.
Print source: The Japan Foundation

In this directorial debut by Kiju Yoshida—a key figure of postwar Japanese cinema and the Shochiku New Wave along with Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda—four bored college students decide to steal money from a company run by one of their fathers. In the process, the company secretary takes an interest in one of the aimless young men, in whom she senses some potential, and tries to change him. A representative work of the New Wave in its aesthetics and political overtones by one of its major filmmakers, Good-for-Nothing offers a complex perspective on class with cutting-edge direction and visual style.

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