Is this the most extreme 108 min­utes in the his­to­ry of Japan­ese cinema?

Tet­suya Mariko’s Destruc­tion Babies opens with an audio­vi­su­al con­tra­dic­tion: while wide shots of boats in the port at Mat­suya­ma on Shikoku Island are shown in mon­tage, the calm of these images is dis­rupt­ed by a rau­cous elec­tric gui­tar growl­ing with dis­cor­dant men­ace on the film’s sound­track. Once the set­ting has been estab­lished, we see 16-year-old orphaned school­boy Shota (Nijiro Muraka­mi) enter the scene, sul­len­ly tra­vers­ing a pier.

He spots his 18-year-old broth­er Taira (Yuya Yagi­ra) on the shore oppo­site, and calls to him across the har­bour: ​“Hey bro, where are you going?” Taira can bare­ly blurt out, ​“I’m leav­ing town,” before he is attacked by a local gang, and resists their blows with a fero­cious vehe­mence. By the time Shota has crossed the gulf between them, his broth­er is already gone. Encod­ed in these open­ing images are vivid metaphors for youth­ful anomie, and the pains of grow­ing up.

The rest of Destruc­tion Babies, direct­ed and co-writ­ten (with Kohei Kiya­su) by Tet­suya Mariko (Yel­low Kid), tracks Taira on his ran­dom­ly vio­lent path, as he picks fights with one male stranger after anoth­er, giv­ing and tak­ing beat­ings with a silent smile. Taira is dis­af­fec­tion incar­nate. A rebel with­out a cause, mak­ing mean­ing­less trou­ble wher­ev­er he goes. Although he seems con­tent to take on the world all by him­self, he is nonethe­less joined in his bru­tal cru­sade by two peo­ple whose paths Shota also hap­pens to cross in his vain search for his brother.

Craven, VG-obsessed school­boy Yuya (Masa­ki Suda) finds in Taira’s ram­page an out­let for his own misog­y­ny and need to feel empow­ered. And shop-lift­ing bar host­ess Nana (Nana Komat­su), though first tak­en hostage by Yuya, shows a mur­der­ous rage that goes fur­ther than any­thing her creepy cap­tor is will­ing to do. This trio’s brief crime spree, filmed and medi­at­ed, cap­ti­vates the region.

“We Mit­suya­ma guys have to be tough.” ​“The weak keep qui­et.” ​“The strong will tri­umph.” So boast Shota’s friends as they respond to a Chi­nese host­ess’ obser­va­tion that the Japan­ese ​“are always fight­ing.” Vio­lence, whether for these young men in their nascent gang, or for the yakuza who run the club, or for down­trod­den lone wolves like Taira, is a way of life.

As he drifts ever clos­er to society’s out­er mar­gins, Taira’s con­duct may seem irra­tional and arbi­trary, but it is also enshrined and rit­u­alised in local autumn cer­e­mo­ny, the ​“bat­tle of the portable shrines” – a ram­bunc­tious affair in which dif­fer­ent teams of men vie to top­ple one another’s sacred palan­quins. ​“It’s like war,” as Shota’s friend Ken­ji explains, in words that might equal­ly describe the film’s events. ​“The cops don’t even care if some­one dies dur­ing the festival.”

If the ​“bat­tle of the portable shrine” is a rite of pas­sage, express­ly not open to males until they turn 18, Destruc­tion Babies is itself con­cerned with com­ing of age: both Taira’s aggres­sive push into adult inde­pen­dence, and the younger Shota’s qui­eter ado­les­cent anguish. When Taira runs amok, his assaults on the world seems as end­less as they are point­less, bring­ing to mind Takashi Miike’s epoch-span­ning 2004 punch-up, Izo.

Just as the pro­tag­o­nist of Miike’s film is the rein­car­nat­ed and immor­tal spir­it of a real-life 19^th-cen­tu­ry samu­rai-cum-assas­sin, Taira shares his name with the war­rior clan whose 12^th-cen­tu­ry leader, Taira no Kiy­omori was the sim­i­lar­ly ambiva­lent pro­tag­o­nist of the clas­sic epic The Tale of Heike. Taira no Kiy­omori also estab­lished the shrine on Itsukushi­ma whose Autumn Fes­ti­val is adver­tised – along­side Matsuyama’s ​“bat­tle of the portable shrines” – on a promi­nent fly­er in Destruc­tion Babies.

So, just as his fel­low trav­eller Yuya’s top­knot harks back to an ear­li­er age, Taira comes from a long line of Japan­ese fight­ers. When he dons his dark glass­es, he shows pedi­gree of a dif­fer­ent sort in his phys­i­cal resem­blance to Joe Shishido’s obses­sive hit­man in Sei­jun Suzuki’s 1967 cult clas­sic Brand­ed to Kill.

Accord­ing­ly, Taira’s way­ward wild­ness gives expres­sion to a destruc­tive aspect of the Japan­ese psy­che that is deeply ingrained in the nation’s his­to­ry, cul­ture and rit­u­al – a sav­age, sense­less bel­liger­ence which can be held down only momen­tar­i­ly before get­ting back up, as irre­press­ibly as Taira him­self, for the next punch. Pre­sent­ed with this mod­el of tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty, younger Shota pur­sues his fugi­tive broth­er, while hes­i­tat­ing to fol­low too close­ly in his foot­steps – and from this messy clash of dis­so­nant motifs, we are left to won­der where Shota, Taira and their coun­try are going. As a piece of rau­cous rebel film­mak­ing, Destruc­tion Babies is as dis­heart­en­ing and exhil­a­rat­ing as a recal­ci­trant teen.

Destruc­tion Babies screens across the UK through­out Feb­ru­ary and March as part of the Japan Foun­da­tion Tour­ing Film Pro­gramme, along with a selec­tion of oth­er Japan­ese titles, old and new, focussed loose­ly on the themes of ​“desires, hopes and impuls­es”. Find out more at jpf​-film​.org​.uk