Aku no kyôten

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.