Young Thugs: Nostalgia (1998) For those of you longing
for The Wonders Years, but with delinquent kids and abusive and/or neglectful parents, Young Thugs: Nostalgia is precisely what you have been seeking. Taking place in 1969 and 1970, it
follows Riichi as he makes the journey from a kid who beats the crap out of his
fellow elementary school students to a kid who still beats the crap out of
other kids, but finally has his father's acceptance for it. It's a real crowd
pleasing moment since the whole movie you're just sitting there pleading with
Riichi's father to finally acknowledge how proud he is of the young thug for
taking on this prissy little punk in red gloves armed with a chain with just an
iron bar and that Osaka can-do attitude that director Takeshi Miike is fond of
playing up in these Young Thug films.
Young Thugs: Nostalgia is actually the third film in a trilogy of movies that deal with Riichi's life
and times. The second one, also directed by Miike, is Young Thugs: Innocent Blood, while the first one is Boys Be Ambitious, but since it wasn't directed by Miike, no one really cares about that one.
In Young Thugs: Innocent Blood, we watched as Riichi grappled with adulthood after high school. That movie
worked because it exceeded our expectations of movies about punks without
direction in that it managed to also focus on the women in their lives, throw
in some unexpected humor and wasn't obsessed with making the punks look cool.
The violence was simply a by-product of their lifestyle, much like my being
inundated with empty diet soda cans is a byproduct of my lifestyle. Young Thugs: Nostalgia though an okay enough movie, doesn't really offer anything that surprising or
fresh in dealing with its subject matter.  Strip away the violence and crudity of it and you have about three or four
episodes of The Wonder Years all strung together. There's the episode about the 1969 moon landing, the one
where they have to confront the death of a loved one, and the one where grandpa
sodomized dad with a bamboo cane for beating on mom and the boy's visiting
teacher. Admittedly, there's going to be some cultural differences in how the
Japanese view their "wonder years" from how we view ours, but the gist is
pretty much the same: that time when we're on the cusp of manhood is a magical
time drenched in curiosity about sex as well as life and death rumbles with
other sixth graders. In fact, there will be many moments in the film that will
no doubt recall moments of your own youth. Like the time in music class when
you're practicing with the rest of the class on your recorder and then you puke
all over in it because of the hangover you got from drinking the night before
when your family was celebrating how well you did in the latest neighborhood
gang war. Heck, during the summer of 1979, I had my own cot in the nurse's
office because of that very reason!
Riichi's home life can be best described as "predictably dysfunctional" as it
revolves around everyday abuse his father inflicts on both him and his mother.
Whether it's slapping Riichi around even after winning a street fight or
committing a domestic assault on his mom as his teacher watches, or hanging out
at the local strip club, or bringing home some hooker and banging her while
Riichi and his mom can hear it in the next room, Pops isn't exactly the
Japanese equivalent of Ward Cleaver. This routine abuse is juxtaposed with
Riichi's mom periodically deserting the family and only returning when Riichi's
dad himself disappears (to go and take part in some student riots as it turns
out). Through it all Riichi maintains his childish optimism by going off with
gramps and stealing strawberries from the local strawberry field and hanging
out with a couple of buddies from school and running away.  Though I understand the idea behind the parallel images of the crew of Apollo
11 heading to the moon and Riichi and his two pals going off to a cousin's
place miles and miles away, I can't say that I wasn't overly impressed by it.
It all felt so obvious and kind of a lazy way to make a point about kids
striking out on their own into the unknown to find something that matters to
them. Thankfully, this wasn't dwelled upon for long and actually led into
another story involving building a giant replica of the lunar landing module
all in an effort to win some paints. Perhaps not so thankfully, you can see how
the ending of this particular episode of Riichi's life will play out as soon as
it begins. I suppose all these coming of age tales have to hit certain themes,
but even aside from its predictability it isn't terribly effective since Riichi
is only affected secondarily by it.
By the time it was all said and done, we hadn't learned anything new about
Riichi or anyone else and Riichi hadn't learned anything either. He was still
at the same place as he was when the movie started, fighting that same kid with
the red gloves and in spite of everything his father had done to him and his
family, Riichi still craved the old man's attention. Disappointing to say the
least, chiefly because of the skill with which Miike handled the earlier Young Thugs: Innocent Blood, Young Thugs: Nostalgia isn't a bad film. In fact, it sits comfortably in with all those other movies
about kids surviving the changes in their lives and as well as the world around
them, but it doesn't bring anything new to the table despite the presence of a
filmmaker of Miike's caliber or its Japanese origins. Okay for what it is, but
doesn't leave much of an impact. You may also wish to consider viewing this
one before Young Thugs: Innocent Blood as it is an earlier chapter in Riichi's life though it was filmed later.
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