A 2000 Japanese film restored and re-released at the Far East Film Festival after Hunger Game and Squid Game from which it can be considered a cultural reference.

Shuya Nanahara's mother is gone, and one day the boy, returning from school, finds his father hanged.

In a fictional republic in greater Asia, in a very near future in which adults have seen their power diminish relative to the youth population that has taken over especially in the school environment.

Juvenile crime is on the rise, and violence also permeates in schools where young people between the ages of 12 and 20 are bullying psychological and physical acts of prevarication.

The authorities therefore decide to enact the Millennium Educational Reform Act, also known as the BR act.

A few boys drawn by lot, including Shuya, are confronted by 7th grade Professor Kitano (played masterfully by the eponymous, distinguished director and actor Takeshi Kitano) accompanied by the military state army.

The professor explains the rules of the game to which the children will be subjected: it will take place on an island that has been completely evacuated, and each contestant, exactly 42 of whom 21 females and 21 males, are given a bag in which they will find a map of the island, provisions and a different weapon each that can range from a lid, to a compass to a knife, a machine gun or a hand grenade.

The randomly assigned weapons will accompany them during the three days scheduled for the survival game during which the boys will have to eliminate each other to defend their lives. Only one will be the surviving winner; all others will die because they are killed or because the collar around each one's neck will detonate them with a detonator at the scheduled end of the three-day challenge.

Two death demonstrations are carried out by Professor Kitano himself just to be clear with the boys to whom two extremely violent elements from outside the institution have been added.

"Life is a game," argues the prof, "one must find out if it is worth it."

Having been sneered at for years led the adults to make this decision, the parents of the participants were warned, the game can begin.

Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem: Dies irae is the soundtrack to the incipit..

In addition, 4 daily reports will announce the progress of the game and the list of the deceased.

The only way out of the game is to commit suicide, probably the only real ethical choice.

From Strauss's Waltz On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Op. 314 to the Radetzsky Marsch, Op. 228, from Schubert'sAuf dem Wasser zu singen, D.774 Op. 72 to Suite No. 3 in D MaiorBwv 1068, classical and other music accompanies the extermination of teenagers more or less deserving of extreme punishment.

Then again, Prof. Kitano has children who hate him, students who sneer at him, and no home to return to.

GAME OVER: There is only one winner and he may have understood the game.

An inspirational film for a plethora of works, manga, video games, based on Koushun Takami's novel in 1996, released only in 1999, it sparked a plethora of domestic and international controversy. Banned for years and excluded from distribution in several countries, it became a mainstream blockbuster, one of the top 10 highest-grossing films in Japan, distributed in 22 countries worldwide.

Youth violence, criticism of media and reality shows, characters never extreme, rather realistic, groups, friends, enemies; the film is never trashy rather elegant, the background social criticism is evident and the psychophysical reactions to extreme situations are explicit.

A mesmerizing experience because it is extremely realistic, a revenge movie coveted, without hypocrisy, by adult audiences..

A dazzling beginning, a dejavu ending, a masterpiece of the 20th century, which sees, foresees and portrays a world gasping on its own economic, political, social, cultural rubble.

20-Aug-2023 by Beatrice