A typhoon’s coming… Typhoon Club (1985) that is! Arriving November 27th from Third Window Films, Shinji Sōmai’s youth cinema masterpiece debuts on Blu-ray.
Note: This review is based on a pre-production check disc and will not cover any packaging or literary insert materials
Typhoon Club is one of the greatest films to come out of 1980s Japan’s “Directors Company,” when a group of young directors banded together to jumpstart a new indie film movement following the Japanese studio system’s collapse at the end of the 1970s. Helmed by Sōmai and submitted to a pool of scripts by bored art student Yuji Kato, Typhoon Club remains one of the darker, more surreal, and timeless entries in Japan’s youth film genre.
Following a group of junior high students across five days, Typhoon Club sets the existential anxiety of growing up against the fear of a coming storm.
The same day that this storm is spotted off the coast, the personal life of their teacher, Umemiya, played by Tomokazu Miura (House, A Taste of Tea) interrupts their own. This loss of innocence is the first domino in a series of events that will shape who they are forever.
Yuichi Mikami in Shinji Sōmai’s 1985 Youth Film, TYPHOON CLUB. Image courtesy of Third Window Films.
Often compared to The Breakfast Club (1985) as an American analog, in truth, the film is closer to being a twisted, co-ed reflection of Dead Poet Society (1998), if Robin Williams (Aladdin, Good Will Hunting) was playing a dishonest layabout. In Hollywood, these young students have guidance. In the world of the Directors Company, they’re on their own.
Whenever a film is given a new restoration, the phrase “never looked better” is often bandied about as shorthand, something this author is guilty of plenty. Usually, it just means that the hazy and lifted shadows of a poor scan or the graininess of a low-resolution scan has been replaced with modern technique. Typically, a projected film print is the best a film will actually look. However, as you can hear about in more detail in the included Q&A with Assistant Director Koji Enokido, the original development of the gorgeous opening night scene film was poor, whether it was an exposure or chemical issue, and it was notably less legible in its original theatrical run. It has now been digitally re-colored and corrected. This new restoration is, in fact, the best Typhoon Club has ever looked. That opening night scene takes place at a schoolyard swimming pool lit by submerged green lighting, and it is striking. Screened on my Sony XBR-65X850D 4K TV and LG-UBK90 4K Blu-ray player (region free), the colors were solid with a faded color look that often remains on lower-budget film stock from 1980s Japan, holding a similar quality as Third Window’s The Little Girl Who Conquered Time (1984) for any readers familiar with that earlier release.
Toshiyuki Matsunaga in Shinji Sōmai’s 1985 Youth Film, TYPHOON CLUB. Image courtesy of Third Window Films.
“Death is the species’ victory over the individual”
The world of Typhoon Club is one sliding into the surreal, liminal space of a hurricane, and the filmmaking is in lockstep. The sound is often strange and wild like a force of nature sat behind the sound mixer through most of post-production. The camera moves with intention, sometimes handheld, sometimes on tracks, including the iconic dolly-push in the gym over one student’s shoulder and onto all of them dancing. Shinji Sōmai is totally in control, and that’s really important to understand if your relationship to this film is by reputation or offhand comment. There is, in fact, a scene of the film in which many teenagers are fully nude, but it is not at all explicit. Obscured by lighting and weather, shot from dozens of feet away, all that is discernable is the idea that they are nude, and the emotion of the actors’ general movements, but nothing more. Even restored at this high fidelity, there is no “I can see the xenomorph in the shadows too early now” issue at play. Sōmai knew what he was doing, and his control stands the test of time.
Tackling queer love in ‘80s Japan, voyeurism, nihilism, teenage coming-of-age sexuality, adult disillusionment, and abuse, the film places children and adults in opposition. Adults prey upon, neglect, and fail the teens of this picture, and children respond with nihilistic abandon, freedom, and depravity in their own way, embracing the absurdity of their circumstances as an expression of growing up. Three teens in particular serve as vessels for this conflict. Ken, played by one-time actor Shigeru Benibayashi, expresses the violent, contradictory relationship of repressed desire and pain, taken to a terrifying extreme in one of the most terrifying scenes this author has seen all year. Another, Rie, played by a young Youki Kudoh (Mystery Train, Memoirs of a Geisha), is the only teen not trapped in the school during the titular typhoon, instead running away to explore the city. Her’s is the conflict of youth’s naiveté and adulthood’s freedom. Finally, Yuichi Mikami (The Cherry Orchard, The Doberman Cop) plays Kyoichi Mikami, the sensitive soul whose angst draws you in like gravity. He must confront the gap between idealism and nihilism.
Yuichi Mikami in Shinji Sōmai’s 1985 Youth Film, TYPHOON CLUB. Image courtesy of Third Window Films.
Included on the disc are the following extras:
- Assistant Director Koji Enokido Talk Event
- Surprising the crowd at Tokyo Film Festival 2022, Sōmai’s Assistant Director talks about Typhoon Club after a pre-restoration screening. Topics range from how The Director’s Company chose their scripts, the casting process, and Bernardo Bertolucci’s (Last Tango in Paris, The Dreamers) endorsement of the film at the inauguralTokyo Film Festival in 1985, where it won the Grand Prix prize.
- Introduction by Ryosuke Hamaguchi at the Berlin Film Festival
- The director of Drive My Car (2021) and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (2021) introduces the film, discussing Sōmai’s importance in post-studio system Japan, and his ability to awaken the spirit of his performers and audiences.
- Trailer
- Built around the film’s dance scenes, the trailer interrupts the magical moments of youth with moments of drama. It’s fine.
- Controlled Chaos Video Essay
- Penned by film critic Josh Slater-Williams (Mubi, BFI), this essay focuses on Sōmai’s recurring tropes such as rights of passage, bodies of water, and fantastical situations, along with the utility of his extended one-shots. Extremely well-written and edited. Could have used a better microphone.
- Tom Mes: Commentary
- The founder of the legendary website on Japanese Cinema, Midnight Eye, this long-time film critic speaks a mea culpa for his “small part” in the poor reputation of Japan’s 1980s period. He discusses each actor’s career, Sōmai’s stint as an assistant director for Porno’s informing his ease with new actors, and his place in Japanese cinema, where he was voted in 1999 as the best director of the ‘80s.
Typhoon Club is yet another great film brought to the U.S. in a recent wave of ‘80s eastern cinema reclamation that has swept through the collector’s market for physical media. It’s joined by two other Directors Company films, Door (1988) and The Guard from the Underground (1992) as Third Window’s big fall/winter release. Other options abound, but it successfully stakes its claim as one of the year’s essential pickups.
Available on Blu-ray November 27th, 2023.
For more information, head to the official Third Window Films Typhoon Club webpage.
Final Score: 5 out of 5 (film and release)
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews
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