[Awkward], idiotic incidents are characteristic of the films of Kon Ichikawa [and] provide a sort of subliminal signature. They erupt in the tremendous decorum of Japanese manners, rather like small volcanoes, threatening stability, poise, elegance. Their effect is as strange and thunderous as more celebrated items (the cannibalism in Fires on the Plain, for instance), because they endanger a whole traditional code…. Ichikawa is too Japanese not to be preoccupied with the forms of his country, but a part of him appears to be concerned with sending them up…. [In the unpleasant film Punishment Room] Ichikawa looks as if he admires the causeless rebels. In a way, one can hardly blame him: their elders are so feeble and venal, and presumably that's his point.

The same film proffers a fine instance or two of Ichikawa's peculiar home-brew of comedy and tragedy. Rape conventionally offends, but the tough kid's...