| 69 | |
|---|---|
 Japanese poster | |
| Directed by | Sang-il Lee |
| Written by | Kankuro Kudo |
| Starring | Satoshi Tsumabuki Masanobu Andō Yuta Kanai Asami Mizukawa |
| Cinematography | Kozo Shibasaki |
| Edited by | Tsuyoshi Imai |
| Music by | Masakazu Sakuma Naoki Tachikawa |
| Distributed by | Toei Company |
Release date |
|
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Box office | $4,551,540 [1] |
69 is a 2004 Japanese film adaptation of Ryu Murakami's 1987 novel 69 . The film was directed by Lee Sang-il.
In Sasebo (on the Island of Kyushu, Southern Japan), in 1969, inspired by the iconoclastic examples of Dylan, Kerouac, Godard and Che, a band of mildly disaffected teenagers led by the smilingly charismatic Ken decide to shake up "the establishment", i.e., their repressive school and the nearby US military installation. A series of anarchic pranks meets with varying levels of success, until Ken and his friends focus their energies on mounting a multimedia "happening" to combine music, film and theater.
A review on Asian Movie Pulse concluded, "“69” is not the best novel of Ryu Murakami neither the best film of Lee Sang-il, and the fact that a film about the 60's is stripped of any elements of nostalgia definitely works against it. However, through Tsumabuki's charisma, the in-your-face buffooness and the music ends up being entertaining and quite pleasant to both eyes and ears." [6] while Variety stated, "Helmer Lee Sang-il, a third-generation Korean-Japanese, does a serviceable, if undistinctive, job in the director’s chair. Compared with other films based on the work of Murakami ( Audition , Tokyo Decadence ), this is considerably tamer fare. Perfs are likable but generic, and tech credits professional but uninspiring." [7]