a.k.a. jitsuroku rengo sekigun: Asama Sanso e no michi
(literal: United Red Army: Path to Asama Sanso)
rating: 
company: Wakamatsu Production
year: 2007
runtime: 190′
country: Japan
director: Koji Wakamatsu
cast: Maki Sakai, Arata,
Akie Namiki, Go Jibiki,
Maria Abe, Anri Band,
Kenji Date, Yuki Fujii,
Yoshio Honda, Len Hisa
writers: Koji Wakamatsu,
Masayuki Kakegawa and Asako Otomo
cinematographers: Yoshihisa Toda
and Tomohiko Tsuji
music: Jim O’Rourke
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(note: no English subtitles
on the French DVD)
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Plot: Two radical left-wing paramilitary organizations form and join forces at the height of the Japanese student movement of the ’60s, leading to the infamous Asama-Sanso incident.
When ferociously independent and controversial director Koji Wakamatsu, (known for his combination of sex, extreme violence, and political subtext), chooses to make a film dramatizing one of the most tumultuous periods of recent Japanese history, it seems like a match made in cult cinema heaven. Thankfully, it is. Perhaps the biggest project of his lengthy and prolific career (over 100 directorial credits and counting), Wakamatsu mortgaged his own property and even destroyed his country home¹ to see that United Red Army was made, and while it may seem crude to those who only associate the word with huge Hollywood over-productions, his film is an epic in every way.
United Red Army is steeped in a history most Westerners will be completely unfamiliar with – that of the rise and self-destruction of the radical leftist Japanese student movement of the 1960s. Born from the backlash over the signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan in January of 1961, the movement turned from protests against tuition fee increases, bureaucratic malfeasance, and the Vietnam War into a violent movement devoted to a global revolution along the lines of China’s Cultural Revolution.
The opening reels of the film play as a documentary of those events, covering the major incidents (like the July 1968 occupation of Yasuda Hall at Tokyo University), their relationship to contemporary world events (the American Civil Rights movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the massive French labor strikes of May 1968), as well as the rise of the Red Army Faction and the Revolutionary Left Faction, the two breakaway groups of the Japanese Communist Party that would coalesce into the United Red Army in July of 1971. If it sounds a bit historically thick, that’s because it is. The sequence plays in a fashion similar to Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor or Humanity, complete with text noting the dates, major players, deaths, and arrest statistics.
There’s a lot to take in during United Red Army‘s first half hour, the news reel footage interspersed with brief dramatic inserts introducing the faction members we are to follow, but it’s all here with good reason. Wakamatsu makes a concerted effort to ensure that his audience understands the postwar events and worldwide cultural turbulence that led to the chaotic formation and violent collapse of the student movement of the 60s, ensuring that we can sympathize with the revolutionaries as human beings even as the atrocities that fill the remaining two and a half hours of the film unfold.
As a drama, United Red Army begins with the truce between the RAF and RLF that leads to the formation of the paramilitary group of the title. Intent on inciting a global communist revolution, the leaders gather their meager forces (there were only 29 members total) at obscure training camps to prepare for an all-out war against the Japanese government. As the exercise moves forward, the leaders of the group enact a policy of self-critique that culminates in a violent purge of members deemed too weak-willed to contribute to the cause. Between December 31st of 1971 and February 12th of 1972, 14 members died either directly at the hands of their fellow members or from prolonged exposure to the frigid mountain weather.
The hour of the picture devoted to the lynchings plays out as a grim tragedy, in which young men and women with high hopes and aspirations (misguided though they may be) are intimidated and eventually slaughtered by their comrades in the name of the cause. The leadership of the group is seemingly boundless in their capacity to destroy, holding their soldiers to ever more stringent revolutionary guidelines and administering brutal justice to any who don’t comply. There is no mercy to be found in a place where those sympathetic to the doomed are at risk of being doomed themselves.
Wakamatsu is as unflinching in his depictions of violence here as ever before, rising above baser exploitation and attaining a level of visceral horror in league with the final act of Pasolini’s Salo. Most disturbing among them is the death of Toyama (star Maki Sakai), who is made to beat herself until her face is unrecognizable. Wakamatsu refrains from showing the blows as they fall, allowing the entire grisly spectacle to unfold just beyond our range of sight. Our first view of Toyama’s face is her own, peering into a mirror held by the leadership. We see Toyama’s descent into madness as it happens, and the vision of her, swollen and bloody and screaming in a voice all but inhuman, is of the sort that can haunt someone forever.
Only the threat of discovery by the authorities brings the nightmare to a close, and the leadership orders that the group’s bases be deserted. The surviving members split up, and while many are captured (including the leadership) five make their way to Mount Asama, taking over the Asama Mountain Lodge (the Asama Sanso of the Japanese title) and holding its manager Yasuko Muta hostage as police forces build outside. We realize that the stand-off is hopeless from the start, and that the revolutionaries are destined to be captured or worse. The absurdity of their purpose is extolled in a single line of dialogue, as one of the five members passionately explains that they are fighting against the police to initiate a global revolution. The youngest of the five, just 16 years old, breaks down, recognizing that all the suffering and death that had come before (including that of his own brother) was meaningless.
The final act is perhaps the best of the film, a restrained look at the infamous Asama Sanso incident entirely from the perspective of those inside. Other than a single helicopter watching from high in the sky, we never see the forces surrounding the lodge (Wakamatsu’s own house, destroyed during the process of filming¹), and the director keeps our focus squarely on the remaining militants and their hostage. Wakamatsu accomplishes something extraordinary here, willing us to sympathize with these lost youths (even after the horrors they’ve wrought) while pulling no punches. We know the end is inevitable, but as riot police storm the lodge we can’t help but imagine what could have been had their “we can change the world” idealism not become so perverted.
A brief epilogue brings United Red Army full circle and back into documentary mode, with scrolling text giving us the statistics of the Asama Sanso incident: 1635 riot police, 3126 canisters of tear gas, 326 smoke bombs, and nearly 16 tons of water. We hear RAF leader Mori’s suicide note (he would die in prison on January 1, 1973 by his own hand²) and see the status of the other participants, most serving life sentences and several on death row. An interesting side note is Kunio Bando (one of the five involved in the Asama Sanso stand off), released by demand of the Japanese Red Army after their take over of the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur in August of 1975². Writer and director Wakamatsu met Bando during a trip to the Middle East, and used his recollection of events as a basis from which to build his depiction of of the Asama Sanso incident¹.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about United Red Army is just how unbiased Wakamatsu remains throughout. His sympathies consistently lie with the minority, the weak against the powerful, from the opening montages of the student revolts against tuition fee increases to the unfortunate fourteen whose lives were ended at the behest of the fascistic high command to the final stand off of five URA against an army of riot police. The film plays as a respectful eulogy to the many who died and as a stark criticism of those in power, and thankfully refrains from vindicating any one political ideology over another.
Wakamatsu self-produced United Red Army for around $1 million US (100,000,000 Yen¹), and while the low budget shows at times (it looks to have been filmed digitally and the period aspects are all but lost in the early Tokyo-bound scenes) the picture as a whole is quite an achievement. Once the URA members first trek to their training bases in Gunma prefecture the period details cease to be an issue, and Wakamatsu’s skills as a director really begin to shine. The juxtaposition of the increasingly violent nature of the URA against the beauty of the mountain locations is stunning, the claustrophobic scenes of human destruction terrifying. United Red Army is a haunting film, from the opening history to the final credits scrawl, with a fine score from Jim O’Rourke and exceptional sound design by Yukio Kubota.
For the first time in a long time I simply have no complaints, and United Red Army easily ranks as one of the best films that’s come out of Japan in half a decade. It can also be a very difficult film to watch. The genuinely troubling violence that dominates the second act will undoubtedly turn many away, and the shear mass of history involved is daunting. That said, United Red Army is still a great film, and I can’t help but rate it as highly recommended.
1. Midnight Eye Interview: Koji Wakamatsu
2. A Chronology of JRA history
| DVD
