reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (03/25/85)
Perhaps, if I spent half an hour or so thinking about it, I
could remember having seen a more confused film than "P. P. Rid-
er", but I certainly can't come up with a better candidate on the
spur of the moment. I saw a film yesterday with two reels out of
order that was easier to deal with than "P. P. Rider". Consider-
ing how blatantly obvious "P. P. Rider's" various obscurities
are, I can only assume they were intentional.
"P. P. Rider" is a Japanese film dealing with three
teenagers who set out to recover a kidnapped schoolmate. This
capsule description, while accurate enough, makes the film sound
rather like something Disney used to make to fill a couple spare
weeks on his TV show. "P. P. Rider" isn't that at all. It cer-
tainly wasn't made for children. But who was it made for?
The kidnapped kid is an obnoxious bully. As best I could
make out, the heros felt that kidnapping was far too good for him
and intended to seek him out to exact their own revenges. Their
methods are opaque, involving attempts to enlist the aid of a lo-
cal gangster and their teacher. The kids seem to think nothing
of running all over Japan without a word to their parents, taking
fearful risks, or putting other people in danger to further their
uncertain aims. There might be a good movie in the examination
of such behavior, but the makers of "P. P. Rider" indulge in the
cinematic equivalent of their protagonists' idiocies, so that
surely wasn't the point.
The confusions of "P. P. Rider" extend beyond the plot. I
have no idea what the filmmakers' intentions were, nor what the
character motivations were supposed to be, nor even what the
characters' main traits were. I don't even know what the title
is supposed to mean. The story, by Leonard Schrader (Paul's
brother) might or might not have been comprehensible. The
screenplay (by Chieko Schrader and Takuya Nishioka) definitely
isn't. Director Shinji Somai adds no clarity to the proceedings,
and in fact makes things worse by his odd stagings of certain scenes.
An impossible script can sometimes be partially redeemed by bravura,
don't-look-back direction, but Somai doesn't even attempt to offer
that.
The actors are tolerable, but do not succeed in making their
characters' actions understandable to the audience. Only Tatsuya
Fuji, star of "Empire of Passion" and "In the Realm of the
Senses", is likely to be known to Americans, and only to fairly
devoted fans of Japanese cinema. The actors playing the children
deserve credit for making do with what they are given.
About the only thing clear to me about "P. P. Rider" is that
the filmmakers had some vague intention to offer homage to some
venerable old Hollywood plot devices, such as the bad man who
takes children under his wing ("Three Godfathers" alone was made
into four film versions before 1940) and the kid eager to become
a gangster (reference the little brothers of Cagney's characters
in any of a number of Warner Bros. films of the thirties). These
don't constitute real themes, just momentary throwaways in the
general confusion. Perhaps were I Japanese I would have under-
stood "P. P. Rider". It was apparently very popular in Japan.
On the other hand, a substantial number of those walking out of
the theater shaking their heads appeared to be Japanese, too.
"P. P. Rider" is unlikely to receive wide US distribution, which
is no great loss, overall.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher