"Two innocent seventeen year olds confront that icon of experience-modern Tokyo's Shinjuku (one of the great night towns of the world). It marks her and kills him. Critics have seen the film as an allegory. Hani sees it as a quest taking place 'between two worlds of morality-the old traditional one which is crumbling, and the new one which is burgeoning. Living between them we are confronted by both.' Hani sidesteps...sentimentality by the harshness of his photography, by a nervous, prying camera, by refusing any but actual locations, and by the tact and grace with which he directs his young people. As a major statement of a major theme (though a cunningly dissembled one), this film quite deserved the enormous critical and popular acclaim it received in Japan." (Donald Richie) Sydney Film Festival Prize.