Strada 5 Panic!

 Yukihiro Sawada. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Today, I attended a 35mm screening of Koko Dai Panic (a.k.a. Panic in High School, 1978), a controversial film co-directed by Nikkatsu's Yukihiro Sawada. The film chronicles a crazed student who steals a rifle and goes on a rampage at his school after another student's suicide. (Yes, the subject matter is quite dark.) It was interesting to see Koichi Ueda (a staple of the Heisei and Millennium Godzilla series) in the film as a policeman who tries to subdue the shooter. 

I'd met director Sawada once before, but this was my first time to see a film of his. I mostly know Sawada-san as the director of the first episode of Strada 5 (1974), Nikkatsu's task force-themed action series that predates Super Sentai by a year. I had Sawada-san sign my Strada 5 Blu-ray.