Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1968) [Trailer] from Art Theatre Guild. Roger Greenspun of The New York Times called most of the film dull "with an air of having been produced only for purposes of demonstration", concluding that "the result is a high-powered sterility in the midst of much energetic busyness. The story at the heart of “Diary of a Shinjuku Thief” revolves around an impoverished bookstore clerk, Umeko (Rie Yokoyama) and a foppish young thief named Birdey Hilltop (famed Japanese pop artist, Tadanori Yokoo). Story is about a Tokyo girl looking round Okinawa island for her long-lost brother and finding he is the tourist guide with whom she has had an affair. Direction: Nagisa Oshima. A metaphysical mystery involving a university student's camera getting stolen, and the thief then committing suicide. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (新宿泥棒日記, Shinjuku Dorobō Nikki) is a 1968 Japanese New Wave film directed by Nagisa Ōshima.[1]. Story of a bookstore thief named Birdey who is led through various adventures in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by salesgirl Umeko. Both Death by Hanging and Diary of a Shinjuku Thief originate from the same event: the Komatsugawa High School Murders. 1:28:17 Gods of the Plague Episode 4. Details: 1968, Rest of the world, 94 mins. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diary_of_a_Shinjuku_Thief&oldid=1015029058, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Articles with Japanese-language sources (ja), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 30 March 2021, at 08:30. One of Oshima's most teasing and provocative collages, inspired by the student riots of '68 and contemporary 'youth culture' generally. This essay considers the growing importance of Shinjuku primarily through two films, which it frames as variants of the city symphony: Oshima Nagisa's Shinjuku Dorobo Nikki/Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969) and Matsumoto Toshio's Bara no Soretsu /Funeral Parade of Roses (1969). You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. (1969). Upon receiving a shocking telegram from his cousin, a man recounts his early life, as a member of a broad family full of dark secrets that slowly reveal themselves through the clan ceremonies. There's a visit to a sexologist whose area of research may challenge Kinsey's, and a talking heads styled interview with a group that's focused predominantly on sex, where it gets expressed verbally, and later on, having numerous sex scenes which had to justify its R21 rating in Singapore.Like the earlier films, this one is also rich in music such as Juro Kara coming on at every opportunity with a guitar, though the tunes were not quite up my alley. The title character, played by Tadanori Yokoo, takes the first step on the road to ruin when he steals an inconsequential item from a bookstore.Caught in the act by the shopgirl (Rie Yokoyama), the shoplifter becomes the girl's sexual partner-and virtual slave.The film is rife with erotic symbolism that will be lost on no one. Oshima’s film Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, filmed around the same period as Funeral Parade of Roses, opens with a sequence set in the same Tokyo location: the plaza alongside the Shinjuku railway station, where a theatre company are staging an open-air performance. 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