Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass, The (1961) Review

“The Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass” Japanese Theatrical Poster

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Cast: Koji Wada, Mayumi Shimizu, Shin Morikawa, Arihiro Fujimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kotoe Hatsui
Running Time: 85 min.

By Kelly Warner

Charming and sweet aren’t phrases I’d usually use to describe a Seijun Suzuki film, but The Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass is not the typical Seijun Suzuki film. Occasionally reminiscent of the Yasujiro Ozu film Floating Weeds, The Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass (from here on known simply as Wind-of-Youth) is an old-fashioned road movie about magicians in a jam, a yakuza on the run, and a young man becoming a hero.

Koji Wada (Outlaw: Kill!) plays a student on the road through the mountain towns of Japan. He’s broke but not without capital, as his former boss paid his final paycheck with a box of lingerie. He hitches a ride with a magician troupe and peddles his goods in the next town while plotting his adventure through the countryside. Wada’s student is a good guy but he wants to be the hero of the narrative so badly that he begins to annoy those he seeks to help. And in Wind-of-Youth, there are plenty of people in need of a helping hand.

The magician troupe at the center of the film is down on their luck. Their striptease girl who brought in the crowds has dumped them for greener pastures and the other acts are getting stale. After an attempt to try a dangerous new trick results in tragedy, their main investor is ready to pull the plug on the entire operation. If only they could pull together somehow — with Koji Wada’s help, of course — they may be able to not only save their show but make it better than ever before!

It’s a film with many plot threads, from the girl who seeks to leave the circus behind to the pimp with a limp, all of which Koji Wada walks in and out of like a hoodlum Tora-san. My favorite of the side stories is the former yakuza turned aging clown who is on the run after leaving the yakuza life many years ago. Now that he’s finally been identified underneath all the clown makeup, the yakuza families want him dead. But the clown asks the yakuza hitman to please delay until the final show… and when that show gets pushed back, to please delay the execution even longer. And the hitman, keeping a close eye on the clown for fear that he may make a run for it, becomes like an honorary member of the show’s troupe.

There is a lot going on in Wind-of-Youth, with many characters to keep track of. It’s a tad overstuffed. I mostly didn’t take to remembering character names, but rather appearances and types (the student, the yakuza, the clown, the strongman, etc). But the cast and director Suzuki (Tokyo Drifter) keep up the energy and make for a charming little tale.

You may have to remind yourself now and then that this is a Seijun Suzuki film. Not only is it lacking in the dark underbelly usually seen in Suzuki’s work (even the pimp with a limp is depicted as a half-way decent guy), but the visual flourishes are kept at a minimum. There is one memorable shot, however, where Wada is splashed with one colored liquid after another in the middle of a fight. With each splash, the camera’s lighting changes. Yellow, red, green. It’s clever and effective.

If there’s a major issue with the film it’s Koji Wada’s character. Though I have no problem with how the actor played the part, the heroic student is about the most unnecessary character in the film. Being a man of action, it’s difficult to call him passive, but his life doesn’t really change at all throughout the story. It’s like a hero TV show character that helps save the day and then walks off to the next episode while the “guest stars”, a magic troupe in this case, are more interesting than their hero. By the end of the film, though I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of the traveling magicians, I honestly didn’t much care to see where Koji Wada’s hero went next. The finale has a moment that seems to suggest, like many a wandering hero of that era of Japanese cinema, that Wada’s hero student may be seen again. But as far as I can tell, no sequel ever happened.

The Wind-of-Youth Group Crosses the Mountain Pass is slight entertainment. It’s fun while it lasts, only features a few blemishes, but doesn’t really have enough going for it to make it especially memorable. If nothing else, it’s worth watching for Suzuki fans interested to see the director do something more innocent.

Kelly Warner’s Rating: 6/10