Yosuke Okuda knows how to make an impression. In the opening sequence of “Graveyard of Youth,” the director’s onscreen persona is dragged out of a restaurant and hauled in front of a gangster type who threatens to give him a good hiding. Okuda’s character responds by nonchalantly picking up the man’s discarded cigarette and stubbing it out on his own tongue — revealing in the process that he’s missing his front teeth — then headbutting the sucker.
It’s quite the curtain raiser, but what follows isn’t simply a repeat of the pugilistic, darkly comic style that Okuda honed over his first three features, most notoriously with “The Dork, the Girl and the Douchebag” (2015). This is both his warmest and most rewarding film to date, with the caveat that it hinges around an event of senseless violence that’s likely to unsettle even the most jaded viewer.
The scene in question stayed with me for months after I first saw the movie at Tokyo Filmex in 2021. It took a second viewing to convince me that Okuda wasn’t some cynical shock jock trying to get a rise out of his audience. The world he depicts in “Graveyard of Youth” can be brutally cruel, but it isn’t a relentless downer: There’s plenty of humor, even sweetness, as well as a genuine sympathy for the flaws that make us human.
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