Watch: Youth Is A Moving Target

When asked what her age was, filmmaker Agnès Varda responded: “There is only one age: Alive.”

“Young” is a relative concept and, from empirical observation, one that seems to be becoming increasingly flexible.

Quiksilver has taken this literally, reusing the title of its well-known, freely distributed (you likely haven’t forgotten the first time you gave that DVD a spin) team films from twenty years ago. If you already named three children the same thing, would naming the fourth be that confusing?

The Young Guns franchise introduced extraordinary talent such as Clay Marzo and Julian Wilson to a broader audience, along with a few others who by now are at the peak of their coaching and/or real estate mediation powers.

The formula consisted of bundling up Quiksilver’s global A-team, sending them out on luxury yachts staffed with private chefs, obscenely large televisions, helicopter pads, and unsupportive sleeping pillows to better and lesser-known corners of the Indonesian archipelago. The soundtrack, featuring several artists from Sydney’s Modular Records, inevitably entered pre-surf mixtapes for an entire generation. Instant winner, and we’d be willing to bet that many of you burned those DVDs out.

Twenty years later, during peak Mentawai season, Quik’s elite contingent returned to the islands, this time staying on land (luxe resort, mind you) and commuting by outboard-powered, single-log dugout canoe instead of the 112-foot Indies Trader IV, which has since transitioned to Ratu Motu.

The new Young Guns film runs Quiksilver’s ‘Impaired’ logo, which Natas Kaupus drew by hand, noncoincidentally around the same time the first YG film dropped. Rio Waida (26) and Kanoa Igarashi (28) are the first Young Guns to come up on screen. The opening section reuses the same Sizzla track as Kelly Slater’s Soup Bowl session in Sipping Jetstreams. A subtle nod to the original, ageless spiritual team leader of the original YG generation?

Kehu Butler (26) gets his own section, while Griffin Colapinto (28), who had to depart the boat trip before any significant swell arrived, has his put together from consistently stellar freesurf appearances elsewhere.

Perhaps that’s why Nalu Deodato (19) feels like the first appearance that truly satisfies the original brief. He is young young, and his silky, at times raw approach will have the curious wanting to see more of the Hawaiian.

Hughie Vaughan (19), also a legit YG, needs little to no introduction, but it’s very much worth introducing him to the shoppers at Boardriders stores worldwide while they have their graphic long sleeves neatly folded into complimentary mountain + wave tote bags. The contrast between his and Nalu’s performances at chunky but still playful Maccas is one of the defining moments of the film.

Golden Olympian Kauli Vaast (24) and Jeremy Flores (38) are paired up and represent one of France’s overseas collectivities, Kauli as a native and Jeremy as a resident. Jeremy effectively takes on the KS role here and steals a record from the oldest-ever CT competitor: the oldest Young Gun in history.

The straight-to-YouTube production was shot in sections collected over a few trips, rather than as a cohesive compilation from a single trip, a format that YG2, in particular, did so well and that remains worthy of several revisits.

Marco Mignot (25) and Mikey Wright (29) bring two very different styles and approaches to the screen, before Al Cleland (24) closes the entire thing with a part you probably didn’t see coming.

For lack of a better expression, Danny Johnson’s “surf films are hard” is good enough here. They’re also way harder to make with the speed at which big or independent productions hit the algorithms. Enormous resources and energy are poured into making something only for clips to be poached and reposted as “raw sessions” under accounts like “Surfers of [insert wherever].”

Young Guns 2026 is a good watch, and certainly something you’d want to play on repeat ahead of a Ments trip, or lean on to kill roughly 30 minutes of your Fast Ferry trip from Padang. The film is also backed by a Young Guns collection, which is currently available in Quik stores and online.