Gakkô ura saito (2009) Online

This is not a bad movie...let that be said right now. The title, however, is totally misleading. I can only imagine it's trying to cash in on the popularity of Tokyo Gore Police which totally lived up to it's name. This movie has very little gore (or none, depending on your definition of "gore"). A better title would have been something like "Tokyo Fight School" or something along those lines. Terrible choice of title aside, it's really not a bad film.

Owing at least some of it's story to movies like Battle Royale, it's basically a teen-vs.-teen fight movie. Basically, a website has a bunch of kids' names on it and they all have some sort of secret they're fighting to keep a secret. Kids get points for "defeating" other kids and sending info to the site from their mobile phones. With these points they can delete their own data or cash them in for money. It's really a bit more well thought out than all of that, but I'd say that's a fair summary. It's a bit low budget, but not in a totally repulsive and terrible way. Everyone plays their parts quite well and the story moves along quite nicely and never lingers on itself.

The one thing I don't understand is why the Japanese are really the only people (aside from perhaps the British) that are willing to depict teenagers capable of terrible violence. Here in the U.S. violence is our bread and butter, but the only movies you'll see depicting teens as they really are (let alone violent) seem to be indie films that only a handful will ever see. I'd definitely recommend the movie to anyone who knows that the title is total crap.

Right, well if this classifies as horror, then I am a pink bunny rabbit! "Tokyo Gore School" is without a doubt the most questionable and boring movies I have been bought from Amazon in a long, long time. Especially because with a title like "Tokyo Gore School", there was absolutely no gore in the movie at all.

And horror? Seriously? A stupid game of having to beat up other students to earn points and learn of their deepest, darkest secrets qualifies as horror? Hardly so.

The storyline in "Tokyo Gore School", well think "Battle Royale", then dumb it down and add a teenage pop-phenomena ingredient, then you have "The Hunger Games", then dumb it down another step and spice it up with more teenage pop-phenomena, and you end up with "Tokyo Gore School".

The story in this movie was as weaker in taste than plain tap water. There was absolutely no point to this movie in any way, and after about an hour or so of people running around and fighting one another (not overly well, mind you), then I simply gave up on this movie. There just simply was no leverage or anything even remotely interesting to keep me glued to the screen.

How this movie managed to score such a high rating is beyond me, but I assume there must be a massive Japanese teenage audience rating it. This movie was, simply put, just downright stupidity painted on a movie canvas.

I am rating "Tokyo Gore School" a 2 our of 10 rating. It manages not to score a total and utterly bottomscaping 1 out of 10 rating, because the movie production was actually adequate and the people hired for this movie were doing good enough attempts and jobs with their given roles - despite having absolutely nothing to work with.

This is pure boredom and pointlessness wrapped up in a live Manga wrapping and served as a movie.

With the name Tokyo Gore School, you'd be forgiven for thinking Yohei Fukuda's second feature film to be a gore-fest like the similarly-named Tokyo Gore Police. But, unlike that 2008 effort, this has something rather more topical at its core than rampaging, blood-thirsty mutants. While an effectively stylish and amusingly exaggerated view of schoolyard politics, Yohei Fukuda's Tokyo Gore School lacks the balance to make it either a relevant social commentary or convincing satire. And while the fight scenes at times thrill, they are repeatedly undermined by the feeling that, in a more stable context, the whole thing would have performed above the expectations set by its unofficial predecessor Tokyo Gore Police. DWS

If you haven't seen or heard anything about this movie before this DVD, you're not alone- this reviewer hadn't either. The only hint that I had going into it was thinking that it would be something like that controversial Japanese film back in 2000, "Battle Royale", best appreciated as a dystopia fiction on juvenile delinquency. But as much as "Tokyo Gore School" touts itself as the next "Battle Royale", it isn't.

Here the raison d'être for the game is simply this- privacy protection. Apparently, some high-school students who have joined an online forum realise that they have to unwittingly participate in an elimination game to prevent their own secrets from being disseminated by someone else. Why these students would so gullibly offer up their deepest darkest secrets is decidedly sketchy, and this important detail is in fact one of the most glaring logical loopholes of the movie.

It is also the chief reason why "Tokyo Gore School" never even comes close to the brilliant "Battle Royale", for what it lacks is really purpose to all that mayhem. Yes, "Battle Royale" was violent in parts, but there was a moral, a message behind it, something which "Tokyo Gore School" sorely lacks. What's left then is to watch the stylised parts between uniformed high-school students- but wait, haven't we already seen that somewhere? Yes we have- in "Crows Zero" and its sequel, that is. Sadly, even as a glorified manga fantasy, "Tokyo Gore School" doesn't make the grade. Firstly, it doesn't have characters that interest you a bit. Its lead character Fujiwara, whose point of view the movie tells its story from, is at best dull and actor Yusuke Yamada's performance doesn't make him more appealing. Secondly, its fight scenes are poorly choreographed and not in the least bit engaging. The fact that there are many of these extended tedious sequences makes watching it even more frustrating.

Perhaps then the timely question to ask is- ought we to have heard of this movie? And the answer is a definite no. Although it touts itself as another "Battle Royale", it simply doesn't have the smarts or the social acuity that it should. Its best comparison would be as a poor man's version of "Crows Zero" and even then, it's not likely you'd be satisfied after watching it.

Fujiwara, president at a Tokyo school, becomes a target listed on a website. He seeks to find out why. He has become part of a game, involuntarily, where others wish to learn his 'secret' for points and prizes.

Running and fighting are frequent activities. He helps a girl named Yoko, and finds those willing to be allies. He is reluctant to join others.

He has a secret that he must protect, and figures that he must win the game.

That does not work out well.

----Scores----

Cinematography: 5/10 Grainy, soft focus, odd filters. Jumpy framing. Zooming errors. Sections that are dark with low contrast.

Sound: 5/10 Badly recorded, irritating, industrial techno music.

Acting: 3/10 Running, jumping, screaming, fighting, leering, mugging. Not much dialog. Much of what little there is is taunting by bullies and murderers.

Screenplay: 3/10 Motivations seem murky throughout the film. The protagonist seemed dissociated from school, parents, food, a place to sleep, and shower after about twenty minutes. The game was the thing, and the winners of the game seem to be the best bullies. Oddly, there seem to be no interactions with police, even considering the multiple murders committed in the name of the game.