Tokyo Gore School

Directed by: Yohei Fukuda

Starring: Masato Hyûgaji, Sotaro, Yusuke Yamada

Synopsis:

In a typical highschool where the strong prey on the weaker students, student president Fujiwara reigns supreme, highly respected by his peers and teachers alike, and leader of a small gang of bullies who beat up the geeks purely because they can.

When one of their victims tries to commit suicide, it marks the beginning of a sinister viral game: student’s details are being posted on an underground social networking website, marked as targets to be attacked on site for special reward points.

Fujiwara finds himself such a target and must out-run and out-fight groups of kids from all over town. Losers of the game have their most intimate and shameful secrets exposed on the underground website, and Fujiwara has a particularly dark secret he doesn’t want to share with the world. His only solution is to win the game, at any cost...

Review:

Yohei Fukuda directed the surprisingly enjoyable Chanbara Beauty, and while Tokyo Gore School fails to live up to its title, proves to be a mostly entertaining, off-kilter movie.

What begins as almost a treatise on the state of bullying within schools – a subject also touched upon by the excellent Machine Girl – soon develops into a one-long-chase movie. After his latest bullying victim tries to kill himself, Fujiwara is asked by his teachers, oblivious to his dark side, to visit the boy in his capacity as student president. Before he can go through with the cringe-worthy exercise though, he finds himself being stalked by another student. Soon other students are after him too, and he is chased through the subway station, wondering why total strangers are suddenly recognising him and wanting to attack him.

There is very little more to the plot than that – Fujiwara discovers details of the “game” and vows to win so he won’t have his own sorry past spread throughout the internet. He spends his time avoiding the big gangs and taking out those necessary to further his goal.

The character of Fujiwara is quite interesting. His actions at the beginning of the film should make him unsympathetic but you end up with a grudging respect for the guy – especially compared to his more immature sidekicks who are also involved in the game and are actively working against him. He also comes to the aid of a female student who seems to remind him of someone from his past. However the final revelations put yet another spin on the character leaving you feeling you’ve been well and truly duped in your sympathies.

As mentioned, this film doesn’t live up to it’s grandeur title, which seems to be trying to link it to Tokyo Gore Police albeit in an unofficial way. A few deaths occur towards the end of the film, including a grim scene of a student having his head bashed in with a metal pipe which seems to keep on going forever. However there is nothing here to match the gory craziness of Tokyo Gore Police.

There is an attempt to add a political spin to the story, by topping and tailing it with a guerrilla interview with the Education minister who is forced to deny that the internet-based game of beat-up-the-bullies was a government-sanctioned scheme to cull the bullies from school. The idea isn’t really developed, and the finale suggests otherwise, but it does add a nice layer of fantasy along the lines of Battle Royale.

Verdict

Neither gory enough to warrant the similar name to Tokyo Gore Police nor as entertaining as Fokada's previous film, Chanbara Beauty. However, Tokyo Gore School remains an interesting and mostly entertaining action horror, unless the concept of cheering on an unrepentant high-school bully leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

6 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

New! Comments