Stray Cat Rock: Beat '71 | reviewed by: William O'Donnell | July 29, 2015
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A Fujita entry to this series. Leans towards hippies having dramatic mishaps than gangs. Fans of Meiko Kaji might be let down.
| genre | Drama | foreign |
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| synopsis | Toshiya Fujita brings the five film Stray Cat Rock series to a highly enjoyable end. Like his previous instalment, Wild Jumbo, Beat ’71 is an easy going youth drama that does not follow Yasuharu Hasebe’s wild gang film path. Instead Fujita deals with social issues. The film follows a hippie community lead by Yoshitaro (Yoshio Harada). They decide to leave their trailer in Shinjuku and travel to countryside by bicycle to save their friend Furiko (Meiko Kaji) who has been falsely accused for murder. The real killer – although it was mainly self defense – is Furiko’s boyfried Takaaki (Takeo Chii) who is being controlled by his politician father. Takaaki would rather live free as a hippie, but his father is forcing him to become a businessman. |
| lead actors | Meiko Kaji | Takeo Chii | Yoshio Inaba | Yoshio Harada | Tatsuya Fuji | Bunjaku Han | Michiko Tsukasa | Nobuko Aoki | Takashi Fujiki | Eiji Go | Torahiko Hamada | Mari Koiso | Yuka Kumari | Soichiro Maeno | Yûsuke Natsu |
| director | Toshiya Fujita |