The Rocking Horsemen

1965, a small town in Japan. Takeyoshi is at high school. One day he hears The Ventures on the radio and tries to work out what that sound is: the electric guitar. From then on all he wants is to form a band. He gathers his friends; one will play drums, one bass, one knows nothing at all but joins anyway. There are no instruments, no money, and nobody can play. They start practising at school. The aim is to perform at the school festival a year later. Nobuhiko Obayashi directs. Yasufumi Hayashi and Tadanobu Asano are in the cast. The film was shot in the region the director came from and is counted among his most personal youth narratives. Tadanobu Asano was very young here and the part is among his early work. What the narrative builds is not music but the end of a period; through the film school is ending and what will become of the band is clear. The cultural change that came with the electric guitar in the Japan of the period is the background, and it connects to the youth movement of the sixties. Obayashi's known visual games are used in proportion here and the narrative is largely realist. The ending is emotional without being overdone; the narrative promises nothing. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese youth films and narratives built on music. Who it is not for: it is long, the pace uneven, and there are many characters.