Red Ball
赤い玉、
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
An ageing film director, his lover from the university office and a schoolgirl he follows in the street — an old man afraid of being finished.
Shuji Tokita is sixty, a film director who has not made a film in years and now teaches filmmaking at a university in Kyoto. He is supposed to commute from Tokyo and stay in a hotel; in fact he lives with Yui Oba, a thirty-five-year-old who works in the university office, drinking with her each night and turning their days into the screenplay for his next film, which she types up for him. In bed he tells her an old legend: when a man is finished, a red ball comes out of him, the sign that his sexual life is over.
At the university his student Kenichi Yajima is directing a film starring his girlfriend, Aiko Kato, and Tokita shows interest only in its sex scene. The couple split over what cinema is for, and Aiko makes a play for Tokita, who turns her down. His mind is elsewhere. He has seen a schoolgirl in the street, followed her home and to school, and watched her at her dance class, and he writes her into his screenplay.
Her name is Ritsuko Kitakoji, and she meets older men for money. In scenes the film leaves suspended between his life and his script, he goes to her as one of them: an old man buying a schoolgirl, which is abuse. He fails, and the encounter ends with the red ball of the legend. He believes he is finished. He shuts Yui out of the screenplay and they part; in the script, he decides, the schoolgirl will be murdered. He visits the daughter he no longer lives with, and his ex-wife, Yuriko, comes running out to him.
At the university's entrance ceremony he sees Ritsuko among the new students. He finishes the screenplay, calls it Red Ball and takes it to a young producer, Aoyama, who asks who the audience is. Himself, Tokita says: this will be his last. Walking home, reading an email from Aoyama on his phone, he is hit by a car and killed.
Starring
Eiji Okudaas Shuji Tokita
A sixty-year-old director without a film in years, teaching in Kyoto and writing a screenplay out of his own life.
Shuji Tokita’s story
Tokita turns his nights with Yui into a screenplay that she types for him, and tells her of the red ball said to mark a man's end. He stalks a schoolgirl, Ritsuko, and writes her in. In scenes the film leaves between his life and his screenplay, he goes to her as one of the older men who pay her: an old man buying a schoolgirl, which is abuse. He believes the red ball has come, and that he is finished. He shuts Yui out of the screenplay and they part; in the script, he decides, the schoolgirl will be murdered. Seeing Ritsuko among the new students, he finishes it, calls it Red Ball and tells a young producer it is for himself, his last. Walking home reading the producer's email, he is hit by a car and killed.
Fujikoas Yui Oba
A thirty-five-year-old university office worker who shares her flat and her nights with Tokita and types his screenplay.
Yui Oba’s story
Officially Tokita commutes from Tokyo and sleeps in a hotel; in fact he lives with Yui. They drink together every night, and she types up the screenplay he is making out of their days. In bed he tells her the legend of the red ball, the sign that a man is finished. As his mind turns to a schoolgirl he has been following, he asks Yui to teach him the computer so that he can write it himself, and stops letting her touch the screenplay. Things go wrong between them, and they part. The screenplay he goes on to finish without her is the one he calls Red Ball.
Yukino Murakamias Ritsuko Kitakoji
A high-school girl Tokita follows through the city and turns into the obsession of his last screenplay.
Shiori Doias Aiko Kato
A film student starring in her boyfriend's project, who turns to Tokita when the two of them split.
Tasuku Emotoas Aoyama
A young producer who treats Tokita as a director whose time is over.
Why it matters
Red Ball is about the fear of being finished. An old legend says a man's sexual life ends with a red ball, and Tokita, sixty and without a film in years, is waiting for it. Banmei Takahashi, who began in pink films and was sixty-six when he made this with about forty of his film students, has said he wanted to show a generation that avoids sex on screen that old men still reach for it. The film is candid about the comedy and vanity of an ageing man's desire. It is far less clear-eyed about where that desire lands. Tokita's last obsession is a schoolgirl he stalks, and the film's blurring of his life and his screenplay lets it treat her as a muse rather than as a child an adult is exploiting. That gap is the question it leaves open: whose last season this is, and what it costs the girl.