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Here's a radical concept. Throw forty school-kids on a deserted island and have them kill each other until one remains. No prizes if you said this one wouldn't pass the American censor board. Which is a shame because this movie is one of the best of its year.
An original conceit as this could have gone wrong on so many levels. It could easily have turned into a gleeful bloodfest, with its audience cheering on the next decapitation. But, under the careful watch of Mr. Fukasuka, this film's heart is very much alive. I'm not surprised to read that the man is over seventy years of age. A younger director may very well have taken the aforementioned option.
The idea for the shootout comes from a disgruntled teacher whose already tortured life is made worse by the unruly students. The kids are drugged and shipped to the island before being shown a video that explains the rules in an enormously chirpy manner. They are then kitted with a random weapon and told that they have three days. If there is more than one alive after this expires, then "boom" they all go.
Around ten of the forty combatants are fleshed out. They are, it's true, typical teenage stereotypes - slut, psychopath, hero jock, nerds, scared girls. But most are developed into overcoming their cliches. The hero's reason for playing the game a second time is overwhelming poignant. And he's not the only character whose background is given a scene or two in the film.
The director paces the film brilliantly. He counts down the number of kids left, informing us of each one's death. Amazingly we get to watch all the killings but very few are graphic and none are tasteless, well maybe one got a laugh. But it is a black comedy in many respects. How can we take this too seriously? Does it really have any higher aspirations than kids are bad, but not so bad as to deserves this? It's final twist confirms my belief that this is a comedy, albeit one that is jet black, whose characters are developed more dramatically than they ought to be.
The movie does overdo the schmaltz, but perhaps, this is due to poor subtitling more than any mistakes on the filmmaker's part. And it certainly won't be for everybody's taste. But if you can take it, you'll find one of the most entertaining, that mightn't be the best word but it's the one I'm going with, movies ever out of Japan.
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I couldn't believe that she knew my name. Some of my best friends didn't know my name.
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That looks like it would seriously hurt.
