Blue Spring (2001)

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Just so...so bad

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

'Aoi Haru' is a very bleak movie that derives its beauty precisely from the haunting sense of nihilism. The almost ruined school with its dingy rooms and dense graffiti is not just the set to the action, it seems to represent the characters' lack of prospects. A movie that makes something of a pun on the word 'adolescence' (together the kanji for 'ao' and 'haru' read as 'adolescence') cannot help but make considerations about the future but these are without a doubt not promising. The school-ground is a yakuza recruiting ground in the most literal of ways and the initiation into gangs is not so much a temporary revolt from troubled teens as it is a preparation for a life of crime. Dreams are hinted at only to be thoroughly dashed. Violence runs rampant but is handled soberly by a camera that know just how much to show to elicit a reaction.It is against this background that the main story unfolds: a friendship between two boys gone wrong. Matsuda (Kujo) gives a stunning performance, his cool demeanor matches sociopathic tendencies very well and make him believable as a ruthless and detached young man with little interest even in his own life. The clapping game will have anyone hold their breath and is shot in such a way as to make it even more disturbing. Arai (Hirofumi) is also very competent as the bosom body whose fall out seals his descent into darkness.A strong soundtrack adds to the impression of things going wrong in an artistic way. Juvenile delinquents or not the human aspect of boys in a sticky situation provides reasons for the viewer to see past the almost intrinsic seediness of it all. Ryuhei cutting Araki's hair as they discuss what to do when they grow up is surprisingly moving and the climax of the movie brings it all home in a painful but excellent way. Apart from these two leads there are minor characters that are equally interesting such as the sickly boy fascinated with worms (that despite being so peaceful frightens Kujo because he has a purpose), a psychopath in the making, the boy that wants to go to Koshien. All people that are adrift without guidelines.Grownups are not absent but they appear sparingly and only the little person teacher that teaches the boys how to water flowers is a positive influence. The focus is strongly placed on the young actors and they truly do shine.'Aoi Haru' is realistic despite being a very artistic movie. It should be seen back to back to Miike's 'Crows Zero' that is a take of the same concept in a much more fanciful and less bleak way. But 'Aoi' is brilliant in its own right by adhering so steadily to an ethos of bleakness and loss. Growing is, without a doubt, not easy.

I was pretty excited about BLUE SPRING based on a few reviews that I'd read comparing it to BATTLE ROYALE and LORD OF THE FLIES - well, this film is neither. BLUE SPRING was to me, a confusing and relatively pointless film, other than showing a bunch of angst-ridden Japanese teenagers in a weird school where they pretty much run the show.A gang leader is chosen amongst the students by participating in a potentially dangerous game called "clapping" - and Kujo is crowned the new leader of the senior class. His best pal Aoki is a slow-witted fellow who eventually gets tired of constantly playing second-fiddle to Kujo, and the two come to blows over it. There's a bunch of other random and pretty meaningless stuff that happens in between all this that never really amounts to anything...From what I had read about BLUE SPRING before seeing it, I was hoping for either a violent social-statement ala BATTLE ROYALE, or perhaps an engaging tale of "lost youth". Unfortunately, it didn't deliver on either end. Stylistically, the film was good, but I was never engaged by the characters and couldn't care less about what happened to any of them. A few of the sub-plots were interesting, but were never expanded on enough to take anything meaningful from them. Overall, I found that the "parts" of BLUE SPRING never converged to form any sort of worthwhile "whole". Other reviewers seemed to have found something in this film that I didn't - personally I thought it was average at best, and would only recommend it to Japanese cinephile completists...5/10

I really enjoyed watching this film despite all those scenes that aren't every good to watch. You have to have a strong stomach to watch this film because there are some very disturbing scenes in this film. To me, I think its a movie about losers who can't forget about what they really want in life. The ending was good and every emotional. The film kind of reminds me of when I was in high school, choosing what I want to accomplish in life. Plus, the music went along so well with the movie, in fact I heard the songs played in the movie before I got my hands on the film. Overall, 7/10...there were some scenes that I just didn't enjoy watching.

The closing night movie for the SF Indie Fest is a vaguely coming of age type drama, set entirely within the grounds of a Japanese boy's school. Here, the kids all run around in gangs, sleep in lectures and fight at break times. Every wall in the place is covered in graffiti. Ryuhei Matsuda (the effeminate guy from GOHATTO) stars as Kuja, a senior who becomes the school's official gang leader by winning at "The Clapping Game". This game involves the kids hanging from a railing on the edge of the school roof, letting go and seeing how many times they can clap their hands before their nerve fails and they grab back on.From here we follow the progress of his friends and enemies throughout a part of the school year, the challenges to his leadership and the pressure of the school system felt by everyone. There's a hell of a lot of violence goes on in the school, and we get the impression that life as a Japanese school boy is a difficult dangerous business.It's a pretty bleak and cheerless vision - between this and BATTLE ROYALE you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Japanese school system was on the point of explosion or collapse, with the youth as disaffected as they come. How close this is to reality I don't know, but the friend I saw it with tells me that the classroom scenes are pretty close to how it actually is.The cast all perform well - Ryuhei Matsuda has such a striking appearance that he doesn't really need to do anything to create an impression, and indeed he spends most of the movie being aloof and impenetrable. This contrasts with the energies and frustrations evident in the other characters, particulary his best friend Aoki.I enjoyed the movie a lot... good characters, and well filmed/scored, with interesting developments. It's based on a collection of autobiographical short stories from a manga artist, which shows a little bit in the episodic nature of the plot, but it's all weaved together well for the movie. Worth looking out for if you don't mind your high school movies nihilistic, violent and bleak.