[In Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, hands] are torn from the face of a clock. Time and customs are wishfully brought to a standstill while the revolutionary spirit of the world is concentrated into one uptight predicament in modern Japan…. The trouble with [the main characters] is that neither of them has much luck in the matter of obtaining orgasm, especially not together, and their conscientious and troubled search for a solution to this problem is intended by the film's director, Nagisa Oshima, to symbolise the need for a Japan to explode its social inhibitions and become a free new world. It is as well to be informed of this, because one could so easily run away with the thought that the film is all about sex and that political comment is peripheral. As a matter of fact, it seems to me to turn out like that anyway...