“BLOW THE NIGHT!” LET’S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER

Here come the yankiis! Cinematic evidence suggests that Japan’s rebellious yankii subculture — made up of lower-class high school gangs with a penchant for motorcycles, dyed hair, and custom uniforms — primarily spent its time engaged in reckless driving and sniffing paint thinner on middle-school rooftops. "BLOW THE NIGHT!" LET’S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER, a raw docudrama shot on 16mm and starring actual yankii gang members, is a supreme example of late Shōwa-era delinquency.

The film centers on Namie Takada, who in real life had been expelled from school, moved to Tokyo, and taken a job as a receptionist at director Chūsei Sone’s Film Workers company. There, Sone asked her to write down her life story for adaptation into a film. The result is this tale of teenage anarchy, where classroom rebellion escalates into a school-wide riot as police attempt to lock down the campus. "BLOW THE NIGHT!" feels like one of Reiko Ike or Miki Sugimoto’s over-the-top girl-gang films — TERRIFYING GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL: WOMEN’S VIOLENT CLASSROOM or GIRL BOSS REVENGE: SUKEBAN — trapped in the punishing glue fumes of real life.

“A movie about rebellious youth that casts aside conflict theory and conventional narrative structure to give us something more purely slice of life. If, like me, you’re into watching people make self-destructive decisions for two hours straight, this is a perfect film.” - Ina Lheor