Lesson of the Evil (2012)

Very Cool!!!

Simply A Masterpiece

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Two things strike me in hindsight having seen "Lesson of Evil": firstly, the IMDB's detailing of the fact it barely got a general release anywhere in the world - was limited, it would seem, to the multiplexes of its country of origin (Japan) and the various fringe screenings that prop up the more obscure film festivals around the world. Secondly, there does not exist, at time of writing, any kind of sequel or continuation of the piece - something it seems to infer will be the case as it closes. Was this a result of the director, a certain Takashi Miike, holding up his hands and admitting he'd dropped the ball with this project? If one, or both, of these reasons is the case, then it would not be very hard to work out why. Certainly, viewing "Lesson of Evil" half a decade after its production, in the wake of various world events such as the forming of the Islamic State of the Iraq and Levant, is unpleasant - one critic writing for Variety Magazine cited as to how the film left him cold after having seen it in the wake of the Anders Breivik perpetrated massacre in Norway in 2011. Others have pulled it up for its poor attention to pace, wherein the film plods along in its depiction of a mundane high-school relations drama before inexplicably exploding into the sort of exploitation-like shock-fest one might expect Miike to lend his name to. Unfortunately for the gore-hounds, there is some 90 minutes of uninspired backlog to sit through first...To divulge too much on what precisely it is that constitutes said shock-fest would be to spoil things, which in one sense is the problem: a dilemma is faced having seen "Lesson of Evil", and that is as to whether you view what takes up the bulk of its final reel as the perfect dizzying conclusion to a tautly made film about realistic people going about their lives, in which case you are going to reward the film generously, or whether you believe it to be gratuitous nonsense, in which case you must provide the film with a rating as lowly as possible.Annoyingly, I have sat on the fence - I was repulsed and perhaps a little offended, but I did not switch the film off in a fit of anger; the song over the film's closing credits seems to beg us to "...think about it", and I have done, and I am still unsure what to make of what I have seen. While perhaps you could say it was similar in tone and content - flashes of raw violence in-between a lead's regimented existence - the film is not necessarily ABOUT ANYTHING in the way "American Psycho" was, and Miike has certainly not made a film with the flair or zeal of something like "Taxi Driver".The setting is an everyday Japanese high-school: small groups of kids hang out and muck around, turning first-aid classes into a bit of a laugh. Teachers are frustrated at kids for cheating during exams via cellular phones. One particular elderly teacher is singled out by the pupils for their own, private game of ridicule because of the way he clears his throat. In amidst all this is Hideaki Itô, who plays English teacher Seiji Hasumi. He seems friendly. He chats to female students without appearing lecherous; catches one pupil reading a comic book in class, but doesn't go ballistic and takes early morning jogs. Things become a little more complicated around the school when a parent is adamant nobody is doing anything about a bullying problem his daughter is suffering, and rumours of an abusive relationship between a gym teacher and a female surface. After this, Hasumi himself has to deal with an advance from one of his own female pupils and then.... people begin showing up dead in apparent suicides. Miike has essentially made one, long drama set inside of a high-school chock full of all those day-time soap opera clichés, but decided to drop into proceedings a series of mysterious deaths which turn out to be the work of a psychopathic serial killer with rooted connections to the school and its personnel. Half of me wants to dismiss the film as gratuitous nonsense which forces us to sit through a truly harrowing passage of film whereby lambs are essentially led to a kind of slaughter under the pretence of safety and security. Film-making, in the traditional sense, appears to go out of the window during these scenes as a bloody free-for-all is indulged in to a poppy soundtrack of crooner music and the disturbing interior mise-en-scene of a kindergarten. Nothing is necessarily under the microscope and if there is anything at all to be said, I missed it. The other half wants to commend it for being a tautly made drama which burns and burns before erupting, not unlike "Carrie", into the graduation ball from Hell. It is not without its moments whereby Miike demonstrates his ability as a film-maker - one particular scene, whereby a student is at the mercy of the psychopath and tied up in a darkened classroom at night, is shot to a slowly rotating fan inside of an air-vent which periodically casts light and shadow on the room thus bringing to our attention the stark nature of the life/death situation. Whether you enjoy the film or not will be dependent on two things: your threshold to being patient and your threshold to being tolerant of controversy in art. In the modern world, tolerance (towards prophet-Muhammad cartoons; the censoring of the n-word during day-time broadcasts of "The Dam Busters"; the periodic banning of "Grand Theft Auto" games in Australia, etc.) and attention spans are on the fast decline, which might infer as to why "Lesson of Evil" struggled with some critics and most audiences. While I would recommend "Lesson of Evil", I would do so with caution.

Another high school-themed thriller from Japan, based around extreme violence and death, and directed by maestro Takashi Miike, no less. LESSON OF THE EVIL is no BATTLE ROYALE, however; it's nothing like an entertaining action movie, instead more of a suspense thriller along the line of CONFESSIONS. The story sees an idealistic teacher at a school who goes out of the way to see that things with his pupils are running smoothly. God forbid you get in his way, however....LESSON OF THE EVIL starts off deceptively slowly, although the plotting is never less than engaging. The first hour is a slow burn, building up realistic characters surrounded by some extremely dark sub-plots where bad taste seems to be the order of the day. It's typical Miike, in fact; difficult to define and fresh-feeling throughout. It's towards the climax where things go absolutely crazy with endless, jaw-dropping violence of the variety that would have been instantly banned by British censors back in the 1980s. These day it passes uncut with nary a word...how times have changed, eh? And thank God for Miike for his consistently high-quality direction and film-making skill.

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 alwaysActing - excellent , SUPERB cinematography (!) , intense sound and unforseeable plot. ''To be continued?''-can t wait for the sequel!

Takashi Miike one of Japan's most biggest horror movie guru is finally back with "Lesson of the Evil". Will his absent be too much or will he come with something extraordinary which will give us shivers up our spins? Well at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) we had the chance to see the movie. Mr Hasumi, English teacher at a Japanese secondary school, is every teenager's dream. He is handsome, friendly and cool. He is also popular among the other teachers because of his clever methods of combating cribbing. Mr Hasumi defends his pupils: he efficiently tackles a gym teacher who can't keep his hands off the kids. His motives are however far from altruistic. That's no surprise. The viewer knows right from the terrifying start that disaster is looming. After some more events Hasumi shows his true colors and starts an rampage within the school. For the ones expected a real horror kind of movie you will be disappointed mainly because this isn't one. It is a grim tale about bad aspects in life and which harmful situations you can come across. But it is a typical Takashi movie it again is an reflection of things that are going down in society and all the horrors it can produce. I am not sure if Takashi wanted to make a statement or just give us another bold and bloody movie. After the movie develops it gets more in your face by the minute showing you what harmful products human being are to one and other. Visually the movie has some nice shots in it, you can see Takashi has matured on cinematographic things of his movies. Which for me really started to show in Crows 0 and 13 Assassins. He tries to put down at least the character Hasumi in different lights and really develops the character in the first part of the movie. You will feel that the students really are cannon fodder as the story develops and the subplots are completely destroyed in the second part of the movie. You can see this as a good thing or a bad thing for me it was good to see his main focus was on Hasumi and not all the others. Although 2+ hours was abit on the long side and makes the movie drag a bit from time to time. As I mentioned the second part of the movie is where Takashi shines again in his old ways. You feel the tension rise as Hasumi is changing into a not so perfect and lovely character. Hasumi comes to school and starts playing people out to each other at first in an none harmful way just to set up his master plan. As he does this he gets involved with a student and tries to extort another teacher for having sex with a fellow gay student. After his set up he takes his skeet gun and starts literally shooting the whole class and more! Blood goes everywhere students getting shot full in the face and Hasumi does it with a laugh. Let me say it one more time BLOOD goes everywhere, no resources are spared to throw in the blood! You can say it is literally shooting skeet without remorse all the little subplots of the students are being shot down. Which was remarkably easily done, two loved ones trying to get back to each other just before they do they both get blown away with all the visual violence to go with it. You can say that this is maybe one of Takashi's most straight forward movies, there isn't a deep underlying story to be found here. As Takashi tries to convince us with some Scandinavian folk story it isn't enough to persuade us to believe there is more. The movie is in your face and focuses on the extend of the violence in the shooting. Of course with all the shootings at school lately this topic isn't for the faint hearted since it really blows everyone away. This isn't his best work but it is a signal the master of extreme violence is back and it makes a mark! Just make sure you get through the beginning.