Cruel Story of Youth (region B/2 blu-ray/DVD combo)

This second feature by the Japanese cinema-insurgent Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence) galvanised its home-turf with its topsy-turvy directorial dexterity and stinging castigation of an indolent, self-indulgent youth culture reposing on the eve of the turbulent 1960s. Oshima’s breakthrough portrait of alienated youth comes courtesy of the 2014 Shochiku 4K scan that resurrected the film’s glorious color palette, recently described by critic and programmer James Quandt as “running riot with retro: pusing neon, turquoise telephones, hair teased into shellacked grandeur.”