Fighting Forever – The Escape

Posted On May 2, 2025

Adachi Masao is a dangerous dude. After making a bunch of funky films in the ‘60s and ‘70s, he joined the Japanese Red Army (JRA) in their effort to support the fight for Palestinian independence against Israel. This is of course putting it quite romantically, because the JRA was essentially a ruthless terrorist organization that did some pretty awful things. But hey, I prefer leftist terrorists over other kinds of terrorists, so the JRA is generally fine by me. However, as a result of Adachi’s connection with the group, he was thrown in the slammer in the late ‘90s. After returning to public life, the dude unapologetically started making films charged with his extreme political ideas, with his most controversial work being Revolution+1–a film that offers up a sympathetic look at the man who killed former prime minister Abe Shinzo, one Yamagami Tetsuya. He even worked extra hard to drop a rough cut of that film on the same day as Abe’s state funeral, just to protest it.

Yeah, I know–I’ve sung the song about Adachi before. So rather than go through the whole rigmarole again, what’s important to mention is that the dude dropped a new film this year, and I managed to see it on its first run. Given that Revolution+1 still doesn’t have any kind of home video release^[1]For perhaps obvious reasons. it’s important to catch Adachi’s stuff in the theater when you can. This latest work is titled Tōsō (The Escape), and it examines the life of Kirishima Satoshi, a well-known leftist extremist from the student protest days.

If you’ve lived in Japan in any capacity between the years of 1974 and 2024, you’ve seen Kirishima’s wanted poster. He was part of one of the more niche and later New Left student groups called the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front (EAAJAF), which aimed to fight against Japanese imperialism and the expanding reach of corporate interest from Japanese companies with operations in Asia. Their fight was envisioned as one to protect Asian peoples and indigenous Japanese races harmed by Japanese imperialism and corporate greed. While a majority of the group’s members were arrested after committing a deadly bombing on the offices of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kirishima managed to avoid capture and stay on the run for 50 years, which is why his iconic wanted poster stayed up at police boxes nationwide for so long. And it’s not like the cops caught him–he came out of hiding because he was dying. He checked into a hospital, told everyone there that he was the guy, then croaked. What a mic drop.

Adachi loves making films about, let’s say… “rascals”. After being released from jail, he made a film about one of the perpetrators of the Lod Airport Massacre–Yūheisha-Terrorist (Prisoner-Terrorist)–and just a few years ago made the aforementioned Revolution+1. But even before he went off to live in the Middle East with his buddies in the JRA, one of his earliest films, Ryakushō: Renzoku Shasatsuma (A.K.A. Serial Killer), focused on confused teenage spree killer Nagayama Norio. So, our guy has always been fond of these loveable rascals, and Tōsō continues on this trend. However, of all of Adachi’s films that examine folks like this, Tōsō takes a different approach–since Kirishima’s life on the run is largely a mystery, the material gives Adachi a lot of room to freely portray how Kirishima could have spent his days. So while the film takes a hard look at the actual historical events and examines the psychological stress Kirishima likely endured, it also takes time to portray some charming and heartful episodes about a single guy trying to make it on his own outside of typical society. As a result, of all of his films about these crazy rascals, Tōsō is probably the easiest one to watch.

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Tōsō can be broken up roughly into three segments: the first part focuses on the demise of the EAAJAF, the second focuses on the daily life of the young Kirishima on the run (Sugita Rairu), and the final part examines Kirishima as an older man (Furutachi Kanji) who has gotten used to his life in hiding, but is grappling with finding meaning in his existence. The segments are presented in differing styles, which helps Tōsō stay fresh, and makes its near 2-hour runtime pass briskly. Meanwhile, the film is interspersed with scenes of Kirishima’s final days in the hospital, which work as a rough framing device for the story, and eventually link up to the final part of the film. Much like the people examined in Yūheisha-Terrorist or Revolution+1, the film injects a lot of personality into Kirishima, is extremely sympathetic to his struggles, and in general paints an honest picture of a man paying dearly for his mistakes of youth.

The film cold-opens with Kirishima and members of the EAAJAF’s Scorpion cell in a forest, testing out one of their home-made bombs. We then witness the formation of the EAAJAF’s different splinter cells, summarily followed by their ultimate demise at the hands of the authorities after the Mitsubishi bombing. This opening segment is frantic and tense–the music is manic and unpredictable, and the camera either moves constantly, or holds on tight, claustrophobic shots. Members of the EAAJAF meet in mysterious dark venues or unused classrooms with chairs and desks precariously piled up–meanwhile, plain-clothes police scramble about town, carrying out brutal arrests either in the members’ domiciles or in broad daylight. There’s a palpable urgency and feeling of adrenaline that likely mirrors what the members of the group were feeling at the time, which comes through clearly with this guerilla approach to the filmmaking, and feels similar to old Fukasaku Kinji yakuza films (with perhaps less intense zooming). With some voiceover from Furutachi providing historical context, this first part neatly and efficiently sets up the rest of the film.

Tōsō then makes its first tonal shift in the following segment, slowing down significantly as it portrays Kirishima trying to set up his new life on the outskirts of society. While there is still lingering tension due to his status as a fugitive, this second part of the film leans into slice of life, lining up a number of mundane vignettes of Kirishima simply going about his days, be it him enjoying meals in grungy diners with his co-workers after a long day on the job, or him getting into a bar fight with a random a salaryman man who dares to make fun of the JRA. This is the most comfortable part of the film, and above all does a great job of portraying Kirishima as just… a dude. One line that really hits at this point in the film is when Kirishima cooks his first meal in his apartment, eats it directly out of the frying pan, chugs a glass of beer, and utters, “Wow… this is just a normal life.” 

These scenes of daily life feel nicely grounded thanks to expert location hunting. On the run, Kirishima spends his time at either the run-down construction offices that employ him, dingy hostess clubs, dimly-lit bars, and ancient pubs or diners. Furthermore, the apartment he lives in is endearingly ramshackle, with the walls and sliding doors richly discolored due to sucking up years of cigarette smoke and cooking oil. All of these locations provide a deep and lived-in texture to the proceedings that work to great effect to establish the mundane reality of  Kirishima’s daily life. They also work well in the sense that these locations probably haven’t changed since the mid-70s, so they feel period-appropriate. As we get to the final part of the film, key locations such as his apartment or the kinds of restaurants he frequents don’t change, which establishes how Kirishima could have lived in a comfortable stasis for a majority of his life.

However, as we get into this final part–in which Kirishima appears as an older man–the film asks its most difficult questions. As someone who’s lived a majority of his life in hiding and is middle-aged, the back third of Tōsō depicts Kirishima searching for ways to cope with his very existence. The lines of reality blur as he encounters visions of past comrades, and is eventually forced to confront himself. While this part is also composed of vignettes, a majority of them portray these psychological episodes as opposed to heartwarming slices of life. While his encounters with his old classmates range from heartful to emotional, his clashes with himself are the darkest. Adachi often includes religion in his works, and while Kirishima is shown in reality trying to find religion, this imagery also makes its way into his internal struggles, and works effectively as a lens to show how he justifies his life as a fugitive. One pivotal scene almost feels like he’s in a confessional, arguing with himself. 

The one lingering connection to the real world in this final part is Kirishima’s time at a local music bar. Much like in the second segment, the location hunting is on point, with the crew choosing an endearingly dank and scrubby bar that feels tactile and real for the aging fugitive to be a regular at. One of the earliest details that came out about Kirishima after he died was that he frequented a music bar in Fujisawa, so the film leaning heavily into this aspect of his life at the end is a great link back to reality to ground the story^[2]For all I know, the bar shown in this film could be the actual bar he went to.. The film even manages to sneak in something of a love story at this point, but rather than feeling forced, it’s used to humanize Kirishima further, and show how he’s interacting with society around him later in life. I’m not sure if this romance was real, but it’s subtle and cute, and keeps things from being too bogged down in the otherwise prevailing psychological madness. 

As mentioned earlier on, a key aspect of Tōsō is how it examines Kirishima dealing with the ramifications of his actions, and this last part confronts this face on. Specifically, the film addresses the very difficult question of if Kirishima even believed in what he was doing in the first place. The film is careful to set this up–in one of the earliest scenes, Kirishima is shown studying communist theory with his senpai Ugajin Hisaishi (Tamoto Soran), admitting that he doesn’t quite “get it”. Ugajin says that Kirishima is better off just learning on the field^[3]AKA, blowing up shit. as opposed to getting stuck in theory. Tōsō states right up front that perhaps Kirishima ended up the way that he did simply because he fell in with a weird crowd. It’s fair to say that getting into hardcore leftism was something of a fad among smart Japanese college students of the time, and the early parts of the film are deliberate about portraying Kirishima as a passive individual who just went along with the group. In reality, when the news came out about Kirishima’s death, comments were floating around about how he wasn’t one of the major members of the group, suggesting that perhaps he wasn’t the most devoted to the cause.

But while Tōsō rightfully questions Kirishima’s initial devotion to his group’s cause, the film is also good at depicting Kirishima’s loyalty to his senpai like Ugajin, and how that motivates him. “If you want me to hide, I can hide immediately,” he states assertively when the group has to split up to avoid the heat after the Mitsubishi bombing. Another plot beat touches on a promise between Kirishima and Ugajin to meet at the same shrine on the same day once a year, so they can keep in touch no matter what–which Kirishima respects, to predictable results. Where this gets interesting is how Tōsō shows Kirishima developing a stronger bond to his group’s cause during his time on the run, after he separates from them. He obviously fell in with the EAAJAF because he agreed with their ideology to a point, and the film cleverly shows his growing connection to the group’s politics as he remains on the run. That said, Tōsō offers up another difficult-to-swallow pill by suggesting that Kirishima’s deepening connection to the cause could simply be a coping mechanism to justify his situation. This comes to light in the final stretch of the film, with multiple scenes of Kirishima characterizing his life as a fugitive as his “fight,” and to win he has to continue hiding–all the while, his inner demons come out to poke holes in his conviction, suggesting that his ideology is simply just a romantic fantasy. 

This tension between Kirishima settling into a comfortable daily life while harboring a confused devotion to his group’s cause is the main emotional struggle of Tōsō, and the manner in which it’s depicted is extremely palpable. Perhaps it’s because Adachi has felt the same sorts of emotions as well? I’m not the expert on Adachi^[4]This guy is! Read his stuff!, but based on what I know about Adachi from reading about him online, what he actually did in the JRA seems somewhat unclear. According to the now-defunct Nihon Sekigun Bot on Twitter, it looks as if Adachi functioned as the group’s political commissar, and was the one who made the claims of responsibility for the group’s actions. I also know that he was one of the more senior members of the group, but just going on vibes, it seems as if he didn’t get his hands too dirty^[5]I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong. In reading interviews with the dude, it’s clear he has complex political ideas and opinions–far more than we can probably say about Kirishima–but ultimately he may not have done much. 

Furthermore, a brief look at their greatest hits show that by the 1980s, the JRA was far less active than it was compared to when it was founded in the early ‘70s, so I assume most of Adachi’s time in the ‘80s and ‘90s was primarily spent in hiding. As such, perhaps the internal debates portrayed in Tōsō mirror what Adachi himself had been thinking, because they don’t feel like something any writer could just fabricate without any lived experience. It taps into a unique headspace that feels genuine in its lack of clarity and direction. I’m sure that after a while, both Adachi and Kirishima realized their revolution was never going to happen, and put themselves through these sorts of mental gymnastics to figure out what their “fight” truly was. In Tōsō, Kirishima does ultimately embrace his time on the run as his “fight” against society–and the film gives him a satisfying conclusion, showing him effectively giving the middle finger to the forces he was pushing back against before shuffling off his mortal coil. In the same way, perhaps Adachi making these politically-charged films is his own way of continuing his fight–by saluting folks he recognizes as comrades, or idolizing figures like Yamagami Tetsuya.

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Sugita Rairu and Furutachi Kanji do wonders in their performances of the young and old Kirishima respectively, breathing compelling personality into someone who was known to most only as a photo on a poster, and effectively portray what his psychological struggles may have felt like.

Sugita has a realistic nervousness to his line delivery and body language–his speech is stilted, he clearly averts his gaze when speaking to people, and his movements are stiff. But as mentioned earlier, another key part about Kirishima’s personality is that he’s loyal, so when his senpai ask him to do something, he delivers strong, earnest responses. Sugita does also stretch his acting muscles a bit more in a couple of emotional performances deeper into the film, and on the whole does a commendable job of humanizing the young Kirishima.

It goes without saying that veteran actor Furutachi puts on a top class performance as the older version of Kirishima^[6]But I do have a feeling he’s tapping into his naturally-occuring ojisan-ness with his gestures and manner of speaking.. He manages to capture the same nervousness that Sugita had in his performance, but at the same time he’s adept at portraying an older man more set in his ways. This is the most apparent during the scenes at the music bar, with Furutachi portraying Kirishima comfortably in his element when either dancing, or enjoying a drink at the bar–quite eerily similar to this video of the real Kirishima. However, Furutachi has to tackle the film’s more trippy scenes, which is where he really shines. When his senpai Ugajin appears suddenly as a young man, Furutachi puts on the diminutive kohai act, resulting in a beautifully surreal scene of an older Japanese man speaking humbly to a young college kid, and it feels extremely genuine^[7]I know it’s hard to imagine the strangeness of a scene like this if you’re not entrenched in Japanese culture, but essentially there is no reality where an older Japanese man would ever speak … Continue reading. And as alluded to earlier, there’s another point in the film where Kirishima faces off against himself in the most literal way, and Furutachi masterfully plays off his own acting.

Many of the Revolution+1 crew come back for this film as side characters. Tamoto Soran, who plays Ugajin, makes a complete 180 from his performance as the awkward but rage-filled Kawakami Tatsuya in Revolution+1^[8]The fictional version of Yamagami Tetsuya in the film. to a chain smoking, cool and confident senpai with a throat filled with gravel. I’ll also drop a shoutout to Isabel Yano–mostly because she followed me back on Instagram–who has a fun bit role as a hostess. In Revolution+1, she has a slightly more major role as the daughter of a revolutionary who lives next door to Kawakami, and puts on a great performance in that film.

On a technical level, Tōsō is probably the nicest looking film Adachi has ever made. It doesn’t seem like much was done in Revolution+1 to adjust the colors or shadows, but Tōsō’s look is rich and deep. It’s a bit dark and slightly desaturated overall, but grounds everything well in our reality and gives the picture an engrossing texture. The same dark and imposing shadows also work excellently to craft a nightmarish atmosphere for when the film embarks on its mind-trips. Of note, Tōsō is shot in 4:3, which almost feels like a throwback to old Art Theater Guild films, and works effectively to keep everything feeling small and personal. Another cool aesthetic thing the film does is project real historical videos on walls, namely in Kirishima’s hospital room, when he starts looking back and commenting on historical events later in the film. This works to emphasise the fact that he’s looking back at a lot on his deathbed, and could conceivably be hallucinating these images. 

If I had to level any criticism against the film’s look, it would be that when the film is set in the ‘70s, a handful of the exterior shots in Tokyo are clearly modern. As mentioned earlier, they do work to find locations that could have looked the same back in the mid-’70s, but at certain moments there are some giveaways when looking closely at things like cars or bicycles in the background of shots. Furthermore, in one major crowd shot, it’s clear that we’re looking at modern-day Japan based on peoples’ outfits, and their smartphones in hand. I know a small film like this doesn’t have the budget to digitally alter these scenes or hire extras, but given the situation it would have been better to either avoid these shots, or more clearly frame what’s happening as a blurred reality that exists in Kirishima’s head, in which case the mixing of modern backdrops and his 1970s attire would make sense. That said, it’s not a huge deal and doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the film.

Avant garde noise master Ōtomo Yoshihide handles the music for Tōsō following his work on Revolution+1, and he crafts yet another masterful soundtrack. Given the film shifts tones a few times, he curates a more diverse mix of genres compared to Revolution+1, delivering frantic and uncomfortable pieces mixed with more slow and nightmarish soundscapes. His sound reaches its most “normal” when the film focuses on Kirishima’s daily life as a young man, dropping in some straight-up funky tracks, which are an allusion to Kirishima’s love of artists like James Brown. When viewing the film at Eurospace in Shibuya, Tōsō was allowed to showcase its atmospheric surround-sound mix (Thanks for pointing this out, Carter!), which further helps to ground one in either the film’s reality, or unreality^[9]Meanwhile, the sound system at Morc Asagaya was less impressive.. 

Similar to his previous works, Adachi uses Kirishima and the film as a way to express his own political viewpoints. When the film starts looking back at modern history, it begins in the ‘90s with the Great Hanshin earthquake, followed by the Aum Sarin gas attack, and continues through to the present. This works to reinforce historical context, but also lets Adachi get in a jab at Aum and exclaim, “No, they’re not like leftist terrorists! They’re killing innocent people–you know, it’s like what the cops do!” And of course, as someone who collaborated with the PFLP, he’s sure to also drop in his supportive stance towards Palestine during this segment. But aside from using the film as a soapbox, in Tōsō Adachi also winks to the camera a few times by highlighting Kirishima’s status a meme by dropping in scenes of people saluting Kirishima’s poster on their way to work, and he even has the apparition of a young Ugajin tell the older Kirishima that the smile on his wanted poster is what keeps the people of Japan motivated everyday.

Adachi also drops in easter eggs about other leftist groups of the time in salute to their struggles. The cause of the aforementioned bar fight with the salaryman mentioned several paragraphs above is a news report on the hijack of Japan Air Lines Flight 472 in Dhaka, Bangladesh; and in another scene, a supposed member of the Second Bund of the Red Army Faction shows up in one of Kirishima’s hallucinations. Adachi also slips in guest appearances from EAAJAF members Ekida Yukiko and Daidōji Ayako, the latter of which remains at large after being released from prison as a result of the aforementioned Flight 472 hijacking. 

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Like Adachi’s other modern works, Tōsō is a toast to a comrade rooted in real history, mixed in with Adachi’s own lived experience and emotions. Much like Yūheisha-Terrorist, the film does offer up a critical view on the harmful acts of these old-school leftist activists, and confronts the fact that their actions ultimately resulted in nothing. But as someone who was also a part of this movement, Adachi sympathetically portrays these figures as the heroes. Despite a lot of the film being severely dramatized and likely fabricated, it’s important that it exists to preserve this history, and to preserve the legacy of Kirishima, who lived in the background of many of our daily lives for decades. And if you’re a frustrated leftist like me, you’ll definitely relate to the emotions Tōsō conveys. 

…and hey, since Tōsō isn’t about a guy who assassinated a former prime minister and has a famous actor on the marque, perhaps it’ll get a home video release?! I’ve got my fingers crossed… and a big ol’ smile on my face.