| Live Today, Die Tomorrow! | |
| Director: | Kaneto Shindō |
| Editing: | Toshio Enoki |
| Production Companies: | Kindai Eiga Kyokai |
| Distributor: | Toho |
| Released: | [1] [2] |
| Runtime: | 120 minutes |
| Country: | Japan |
| Language: | Japanese |
is a 1970 Japanese drama film written and directed by Kaneto Shindō.[3] It is based on the true story of spree killer Norio Nagayama.
Michio Yamada, a recent school graduate from Hokkaido, is sent to Tokyo to work as a fruit packer in a department store as part of a government programme. One participant after another quits, and so does Yamada. He drops out of various jobs, is caught while secretly trying to board a ship to the U.S., and is rejected when he volunteers for military service. Later, he kills two guardsmen with a gun which he stole from a house on an American base.
Halfway into the film, a flashback sequence tells of Yamada's poor upbringing as the seventh child of eight of a submissive woman and her irresponsible husband. As a young boy, he is forced to witness the rape of his older sister, who suffers a trauma and is sent to a mental institution, and the starving of two other sisters in their attempt to feed the youngest siblings.
Back in the present, Yamada kills two taxi drivers and steals their money. He has an affair with a young prostitute and later with a girl who frequently visits the night club where he works at. When his girlfriend drugs a customer and takes his money, she is severely beaten by a yakuza gang. Yamada in return confronts the gang's leader with his gun and beats him up. After a failed burglary, Yamada is arrested by the police.
Live Today, Die Tomorrow! was released in Japan on October 31, 1970, where it was distributed by Toho.
The film won the Golden Prize at the 7th Moscow International Film Festival in 1971.[4] In Kinema Junpo magazine's list of the 10 best Japanese films of the year, Live Today, Die Tomorrow! reached #10 in 1970.[5]
In his review for the Chicago Reader, reviewer J.R. Jones compared Live Today, Die Tomorrow! with Nagisa Ōshima's earlier juvenile delinquency dramas for their "inherent critique of postwar Japanese society".[6]