After five years absence, Katsu returns to his birthplace, a fishing village. He finds work in a cinema and has an affair with the owner. One day he sees Mitsuo and Yoko making love among the reeds. Mitsuo was once a class-mate of his, but when they meet, Katsu emphatically denies his own identity. Even when Katsu is eye to eye with his mother, he says he doesn’t know her. Mitsuo’s lover Yoko is interested in Katsu. Katsu admits to her that he is on the run because he killed someone in Tokyo. A yakuza is after him. Koibito tachi wa nureta is Kumashiro’s favourite film. There are many well-known elements from Kumashiro’s later films – the motif of the wandering man, a bicycle with attributes, the complaining woman who tries to hang herself but doesn’t succeed. The scene in which the characters leapfrog through the dunes at dawn is famous for the long uncut shot. It was expected that the censors would object to the complete nudity of the actress Nakagawa Rie (Yoko), but during shooting it was Kumashiro’s intention to record the inner feelings of the three.
