- Three young men from the countryside spend their lives in Tokyo alternately complaining about their boring existence and brutalizing people. When they come to violent ends themselves, they claim to be victims of society.
- Three young men from Aomori-- Harada, Matsumoto, and Osawa-- live together in a small room in Tokyo. They constantly bemoan their lack of money, lack of girlfriends, poor living conditions and boring lives. Riding home on a train one evening, they impulsively go to the beach instead. There they attack a couple, raping the woman, and forcing the man to have sex with her while they take pictures. The next day, they insult and belittle student demonstrators at the university where Matsumoto is supposedly studying to take entrance exams. In their apartment, they disturb their neighbors by singing late into the night, and then peep on the couple making love in the next room. Chieko Yoshinaga, an elementary school friend of the three who now works as a hostess in a Tokyo nightclub, pays the men a visit. They later rape her in her apartment. By chance, the three men meet a model whose nude pictures decorate their apartment. She invites them to her room and entertains them with whisky and sex until three thugs burst in and beat and rob the three men. After this attack, the trio begin meeting violent ends, and the survivors blame society for their sorry plight.—Dekkappai
- Three young men from Aomori-- Harada, Matsumoto, and Osawa-- live together in a small room in Tokyo. At a bar they bemoan their lack of money, lack of girlfriends, poor living conditions and boring lives. On the train ride home they impulsively decide to go to the beach. There they attack a couple, raping the woman and then forcing the couple to have sex while they photograph them. At their apartment, they decorate their walls with pictures of a nude model from a magazine, whom they call "Santa Maria", their protecting angel. Complimenting Osawa on the quality of his photographs of the couple, they note that these will prevent the couple from pressing charges.
At the university where Matsumoto is supposedly studying for an entrance exam, the three insult and belittle student demonstrators. Back at the apartment, they sing songs about Abashiri Prison late into night, until they get complaints from their neighbors. They then take turns peeping through a hole in the wall into the next room, where a couple is making love. They comment on the action in whispers. A surprise female visitor turns out to be Chieko Yoshinaga, an elementary school friend of the three. Chieko works in a Tokyo nightclub as a hostess. Harada escorts Chieko home while the other two resume peeping at the neighbors.
Osawa comes across Matsumoto playing at a pachinko parlour instead of studying for his entrance exams. They decide to go have a drink at Chieko's bar. While another girl plays Debussy's "Girl with the Flaxen Hair" on piano, the two men tell Chieko she should sleep with them, since she must have already slept with Harada. She refuses, and the two men commit a petty theft, then then attempt to pick up random girls on the street.
Re-unified with Harada, Osawa and Matsumoto complain that Chieko turned them down. Remarking that she also rejected him after he had accompanied her to her apartment the other night, Harada decides they should all rape her. They proceed to her apartment, burst in, then play rock-scissors-paper over turns assaulting her.
Bored in their apartment again, Osawa produces a toy pistol he has modified to fire real bullets. He suggests they use it to "have fun". Crossing a field, they come across the nude model whose pictures are pinned to the apartment wall. They follow her. Rock-scissors-paper decides who will knock on her door. She invites them in. Surprisingly friendly with them, she tells the young men she is also from Aomori. She gives them whisky and asks them to watch her place while she goes shopping. When she returns. she invites them to stay and drink while she sleeps. Suspecting she is mocking them, the men ask if they can sleep with her. Rock-scissors-paper again decides the order of the turns. After Osawa gets into bed with the model, three thugs burst into the room, beat and rob the young men. Back at home, disappointed in their "angel", they tear the pictures off the wall and rip them up in anger.
Osawa takes his gun, saying he is going out to drink. Harada and Matsumoto later learn that Osawa has been shot with his own pistol, possibly by an accidental self-inflicted wound. Harada and Matsumoto muse that "everybody" killed Osawa-- Chieko, the nude model, their landlord, teachers, policemen... A week later, police inform Harada, that Matsumoto has killed himself by jumping in front of a train at Shinjuku station. Looking for a reason, the police decide he was unable to adjust to life in a contemporary metropolis. Harada objects, saying that Matsumoto did not commit suicide. Nobody willingly commits suicide, he says, Matsumoto was killed by society.
Back at the bar, now alone, Harada listens to the Abashiri Prison song while smoking and looking at pictures of himself and his two dead companions. As Harada is walking home, a running man bumps into him on the street, dropping a pistol. Harada picks up the pistol and the policeman who has been chasing the man orders Harada to drop the gun. Harada shoots the policeman instead. The policeman also fires at Harada, who leans against a wall, bleeding from the stomach, and passes out on the street, apparently dead.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
Top Gap
By what name was Violence Without a Cause (1969) officially released in Canada in English?
Answer