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Cast: Yuichi Mikami, Youki Kudo, Tomokazu Miura, Yuka Onoshi, Yuriko Fuchizaki, Tomiko Ishii, Shigero Benibayashi, Tomoko Aizawa. Screenplay: Yuji Kato. Cinematography: Akihiro Ito. Production design: Noriyoshi Ikeya. Film editing: Isao Tomita. Music: Shigeaki Saegusa.
Shinji Somai finds a catalyst and a correlative in the storm that animates Typhoon Club, a portrait of adolescence that takes place half a world away from the one found in John Hughes's The Breakfast Club, which appeared the same year. The teenagers of Somai's film are middle schoolers, younger than the ones in Hughes's, and Typhoon Club has a more serious tone, but both acknowledge the perils of a period through which many of us fail to pass unscathed. No wonder that filmmakers constantly turn to it for inspiration to produce movies that range in tone from amused, like Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), to brutal, like Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl (2001). In Somai's film, the typhoon is the catalyst for acting out, as a group of young teens are trapped in their school while the storm rages. The consequences range from pranks and making out to rape and suicide. The passage of the storm leaves damage that is both physical and emotional. Typhoon Club deals with so many characters, including some adults, that it's sometimes as noisy and confusing as the storm itself, but Somai maintains steady control throughout.
