Considered to be Shinji Somai's first masterpiece, the freewheelin, madcap coming-of-age tale by way of combating authorities - teachers, cops, yakuza is an unruly, wild ride, taking place in sweltering summer heat when the school's out. Three high schoolers - Jojo, Bruce and Jisho witness the kidnapping of a fat, bully schoolmate in the school yard and even though they don't like him, they decide to track down the kidnappers. It's the summer vacation and anything is possible. It's that manic energy of youth Somai is tapping on and P.P. Rider is nothing if not that forward momentum from the beginning, long tracking shot (supposedly used 3 cranes to manage) to the very end. On the trio's journey (one girl named Bruce, and two boys), they meet many characters - cops, a druggy yakuza named Nobody (Gombei), played by Tatsuya Fuji (In the Realm of the Senses), and their school teacher who decides to help them out, perhaps infected by her student's youthful exuberance and more.
Getting the fatso back is not really the main point of P.P. Rider. The chaos is. The world outside school is truly a dangerous place - they get beat up, get shot at constantly, offered drugs left and right, and have to face a lot of physical hurdles on the way. Nothing really fazes them. They sing, dance, exchange their clothes and appearances and shoot their way through the obstacles.
The physicality of the film is astounding. The trio constantly climbs up and down grimy concrete walls and barbed wires: the prolonged chase scene at the lumber yard near the harbor where they jump from a floating log to log and constantly falling into water. I really do not know how Somai and team achieved that. It's much less coherent and compact than his later masterpieces like Typhoon Club and Moving. But it's P.P. Rider's unkempt, daring attempt at capturing the manic exuberance of youth that is commendable.
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