Violence at Noon is based on the notorious nationwide killing spree of the "Daylight Demon," a brutal murderer who took the lives of over thirty victims during the late 1950s, all women and all killed in the middle of the day. In Oshima's version, the killer is also part of a failed cooperative farm in rural Japan whose members include two idealistic women who become involved with the future killer. Violence at Noon introduced a new formal complexity into Oshima's cinema, abandoning the extended long takes that were the staple of his early films to embrace a radically fragmented montage style that mirrors the women's attempts to understand their traumatic memories. A disturbing study of the criminal mind and a moving elegy to failed dreams, Violence at Noon is Oshima's first great masterpiece.