Awarded the 'Best Bicentennial Theme' prize at the Cinemedia VI Festival; shown at the Visual Anthropology series at the American Anthropological Assn. convention in San Francisco last December. The synthesis of modern American, Oriental and American Indian lifestyles is revealed in a father's guidance of his 13-year-old son through rites of passage into manhood. The duality of aggressiveness and passivity of each tradition is expressed in the martial arts instruction and performance, and in the Indian's ceremonies which focus upon the wrist cutting and vision quest of the son. -- Elvio Angeloni
[Source: Filmforum program notes, 1/22/1976]