A central figure in Japan’s underground and political cinema since the 1960s, Adachi Masao returns with Escape, a portrait of the fugitive Kirishima Satoshi. 

In 1970s Japan, at the height of social unrest, Kirishima Satoshi was a member of the 'Scorpion Cell' of the East Asian Anti-Japanese Armed Front, a New Left militant group. Considered a wanted fugitive, the young Kirishima went into hiding. He survived as a day labourer and, decades ago, began a live-in job at a construction company in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture, under the alias Uchida Hiroshi. Though he found small moments of respite in hobbies, he remained haunted by his former comrades — those imprisoned, those who fled the country, and those who took their own lives.
In 2024, at the age of seventy and diagnosed with terminal cancer, Kirishima lay hovering between life and death. As his consciousness fades, memories of his time on the run with the East Asian Anti-Japanese Armed Front come to the surface. What did he spend his life chasing, and what did he hope to gain at the end of nearly fifty years of fugitivity? What was he trying to express on his deathbed as he confessed, “I am Kirishima Satoshi!”?

Juxtaposing these final moments with his own experience in revolutionary struggle, Adachi Masao depicts Kirishima’s anguish and determination in Escape.

The film was shot by Adachi’s longtime collaborator Yamazaki Yutaka, cinematographer of AKA Serial Killer, with an original score by Ōtomo Yoshihide.

"What was young Kirishima Satoshi seeking as he spent 49 years on the run as a wanted fugitive? Was his existence a living hell of constantly escaping, or a world of unfathomable suffering? And as he lay on his deathbed, why did he put an end to his struggle in fugitivity, disclosing his true identity by confessing, 'I am Kirishima Satoshi!' What was he trying to express, and grab hold of in those final moments? Was it a testament to the certainty he developed while on the run — his 'revolutionary conviction'? The answer to this mystery can only be found through film. ESCAPE is my attempt at telling this story." — Adachi Masao

The UK premiere screening on Friday 16 January will be followed by a live online Q&A with Adachi Masao, hosted by Ricardo Matos Cabo.