In movies like I Was Born, But..., Yasujiro Ozu tried to warn us that cute little lads with all their devilish antics will grow up into well-meaning cogs in a mediocre world. Bad Company catches such boys in adolescence, well into the process, but still young enough to fight it. Beautifully shot in the mountain-ringed valley of the director's youth, in Nagano Prefecture, the film tells of Sadatomo, Furumaya's alter ego. Elevated in the eyes of his cronies in middle school mischief, Sadatomo is secretly vulnerable to the constant challenges to self-criticism by his teacher, Kobayashi, a latter-day samurai determined to force the rascals to face their "honest" core. But Sadatomo feels he has no core: "I Am an Onion" is the title of his almost prize-winning essay (till he throws it in the river). In more ways than this, the river will become the receptacle of these kids' future. A closely observed portrait of youth, Bad Company is also a chilling picture of conformism's supreme authority, and of adolescence as a bridge to nothing.