Wakamono wa yuku
Forward, Ever Forward
- Release Date
- May, 10th, 1969
- Running Time
- 99 min
- Genre
- Feature
- Color
- -
- Screening Format
- -
[ Directed by ]
[ Cast ]
[ Staff ]
- YAMANOUCHI Hisashi ── Screenplay
- MIYAJIMA Yoshio ── Cinematography
- YAMASHITA Hiroshi ── Production Design
[ Production Company ]
SHOCHIKU
[ Distributor (Japan) ]
SHOCHIKU
[ Story ]
This is a world of shifting loyalties and conceptions. There is a glaring generation gap, no communication in one's own family, let alone understanding among nations. The days of closely-knit and loving families are gone.
The Sato family could be called a typical Japanese home on a small scale. Taro (Kunie Tanaka), the eldest son, had started fending for his brothers and sister when they became orphaned at only twelve years old. Ever since, he has looked after his brood like an old mother hen.
Taro has risen slowly to head the workers at construction sites and his modest dream is to own a piece of land, build an apartment house, and be his own master, instead of being forever at the beck and call of his superiors.
Jiro (Isao Hashimoto), the second son, is a driver for a trucking company and is engaged to be married. Saburo (Kei Yamamoto), the brains of the family, is a student. Education, right or wrong, has taught him to think, and he is always causing tempests in the home. He even frowns on Taro's modest dream.
Suekichi (Shoji Matsuyama), the baby of the family, and Orie (Orie Sato), the only girl, still respect Taro as they did when they were small children. They do not understand why Saburo should take part in violent school activities, and prejudice entering a good company.
Added to Saburo's troubles, Jiro's girl leaves him to return to Tsukamoto, a man whom she knows to be rotten to the core, but still loves. Next, Orie turns down a fine young worker with a future and chooses Tozaka, an A-bomb victim. The roof seems to come tumbling down on the heads of the Sato family.
It is the last straw when the man, to whom Taro had paid for the land, absconds with his hard-earned money. Something snaps in Taro.
He does not know why or what he has lived for all these years. Life has become meaningless to him and he wonders what must be done to put meaning into it again.
【Quoted from Unijapan Film Quarterly 1969 12.3】
[ Contact (International) ]
SHOCHIKU CO., LTD.
International Sales & Licensing
Togeki Bldg., 4-1-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8422
tel: +81-3-5550-1623
fax: +81-3-5550-1654
E-mail: ibd@shochiku.co.jp
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