DVD Aku no kyôten
Run time: 129 min
Rating: 6.7
Genres: Thriller
Director: Takashi Miike
Writers: Yûsuke Kishi, Takashi Miike
Stars: Takayuki Yamada, Fumi Nikaidô, Howard Harris
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Storyline A popular high school teacher concocts an extreme plan to deal with the rise of bullying and bad behavior among the student body. |
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Plot Keywords: high school teacher, high school, survive, male nudity, homosexual | |
Details: Country: Japan Release Date: 10 November 2012 (Japan) |
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DVD Aku no kyôten
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Lesson of the Evil (2012) (Japanese Horror)
A popular high school teacher concocts an extreme plan to deal with the rise of bullying and bad behavior among the student body in this film by Takashi Miike. Right off the bat, this film offers something interesting by having the antagonist as the main character. The pacing of the opening hour drags slightly, but it does do a good job of slowly revealing the anti-hero's personality – which is oddly charismatic. I've never been a fan of Hideaki Ito, but even I'll admit that he gives a fantastic performance here. The structure of the film also makes it difficult to predict which students will survive (if any). Miike is perhaps at the most assured phase of his entire career as he has become one of the most reliable directors in the world today. Needless to say, the direction is solid.
Now, there may be some controversy regarding the long-sustaining finale that uses a certain kind of graphic violence against schoolkids. Despite the somewhat repetitive nature of the deaths, they do have a disturbing essence due to similar real-life events. Most ironically, there's also some dry black humor present, which could offend some viewers. In any case, the finale is deliciously entertaining and exciting.
If one adds "Lesson of the Evil" to "Goosebumps: The Movie", "Horror Stories", "Kotsutsubo", and the final installment to the "Hellsing Ultimate" anime films, it looks like 2012 is going to be a strong year for Asian horror.
Funny? Comedy? Satire? Please… Whe live in such a morally degraded time that a psychopath cold bloodedly slaughtering his studends is regarded as ''funny''. To all people that aren t morally crippled I want to say that this is not a funny movie-not in the slightest. Miike shows us a portrait of a psychopath and does so in his his best master-filmmaker tradition. Intense , shocking ,gripping , and exiting. A serial killer , the charismatic teacher hunts down his students in a locked down school. You can almost barely sit in your seat rooting for the students to survive-but Miike is unpredictable as always
Acting – excellent , SUPERB cinematography (!) , intense sound and unforseeable plot. ''To be continued?''-can t wait for the sequel!
LESSON OF THE EVIL is a relentless, remorseless look at pure evil. It is so brutally violent, it numbs you into submission and you are unsure how you should react to it. There is little joy in watching the film (though there is dark, black humour throughout) but it stands as a unique testament to infant terrible director Takashi Miike's crazy view of the world.
The film's first half is almost as restrained as the second is violently eruptive. The setting is an elite private school in Japan where teachers and administrators discuss the prevalent problem of students cheating during exams, mostly using their cell phones. Numerous solutions are proposed but the most radical comes from Seiji Hasumi, the charming, popular English teacher, who suggests body searches and signal jammers, but who's notions are rejected as being counterproductive to keeping the schools environment healthy. Undeterred, Hasumi continues keeping tabs on students and learns of widespread bullying, harassment and illicit teacher student relationships. You think he's going to turn into some kind of saviour, and the films tone seems to be heading this way, but then, and there is no fine way to describe it, Hasumi goes psycho. He explodes into a violent killing machine during a nightly school function, exacting brutal death, wielding a shotgun, pumping bullets into anything that moves and talking to his demons to leave little doubt he is a complete loony.
Knowing a bit about Takashi Miike and the reputation that precedes him, this midway shift should not be surprising (or even considered a spoiler). His films are almost exclusively violent, of that there is no doubt, but they revel in tasteless torture porn that is not for the squeamish. LESSON is no different and if anything, the overlong period of exposition, detailing the tribulation of a small group of students at the school, seems overcooked in contrast to the rushed, extended finale, which is really where Miike displays his skills as filmmaker. Hasumi is molded in the fashion of television's DEXTERa likable serial killer with a wide grin and charismatic looks to match who is also extremely lucky in giving anyone investigating the deaths, a slip. But while the last hour is a lot of fun (at one point Hasumi off's countless students wearing a rain jacket and swaying to the jazzy tune of MACK THE KNIFE) it is indescribable, nearly unwatchable and after sometime, repetitious to the point of being unbearable. And, just when you think there might be some end in sight, Miike turns a moment of hope into a Michael Haneke moment of viewer patience testing ala FUNNY GAMES. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you know you're in for a good time.
Takashi Miike is one of my favourite Japanese directors, but … and it's a big but … he is very hit or miss. And sadly this film is a great big miss. It has a strange construction. It's very slow to start. We're almost halfway through the film before the signature Miike violence kicks in. And then it's very pedestrian. It was very reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's movie 'Elephant' based on the Columbine school shootings. That was a tedious movie, so too is this one. The psycho teacher wanders round the school with a high powered rifle wasting his pupils one by one. There is no tension. He just shoots them. When he has shot them all … the police arrive. Huh? And then to cap it all …. before the credits roll … we see the caption 'To be continued …' I really couldn't imagine why anyone would want to see a second installment of this tedium.