kosmasp
Another Miike, and this played at a festival, celebrating Miikes 100th movie! Yes that is a lot! And he already had 101 lined up for another festival for autumn 2017 (so that played there, though I haven't seen the newest one, while he probably is shooting 102 and 103). Some may watch the movies and try to learn from Teacher Miike. Not all teachers should be idolized of course.What about the one who is the main character in this one? A great acting job and a difficult one. I had no idea where the movie was going with this and I was just going with the flow. I won't spoil anymore other than there is a lot of violence and a lot of blood. So if you are easily offended, this may not be for you. It's not only lesson, but also charisma of the evil ...
Snaggletooth .
By now I've settled well into the view that good horror comes with a non-English soundtrack. It just gets proved so often that the USA can't compete with what's coming out of foreign shores (shown too by it's remaking of many of these) . Of course this isn't 100% guaranteed, and sadly Lesson of the Evil fails to deliver apart from the last 15 or so minutes.The film is slow. I accept we need to experience the character development of the protagonist here but at times it's like watching some late night oriental drama that has nothing going for it. True, by now I know that many Japanese, or Korean flicks start off slow and then hit you like a shovel in the face with a barrage of blood and gore, but LOTE climaxed with a series of gunshots which was OK, but just not that amazing.I expected much more from this movie as it was highly recommended to me and it cost a fair bit of money to buy. But the pay off just didn't do it for me, and the way it ended was plain daft too with it looking as if we are getting a sequel. If you can get it cheap on VOD by all means give it a watch, but don't pay out any big money for it. You could even skip to the last 15 or 20mins too if you get bored and want to see the good stuff.
nick fredrikson
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!
Kevan Brighting
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.
AD
