User reviews

Firstly let me say this is a film not for everyone.personally i loved it , acting was superb direction editing all spot on. as with all films of this genre from japan and and other Asian countries it will be remade (badly i may add ) by the more popular outlets of ,lets just say western money making studios. OK the plot is a bit of a slow burner at the start but soon picks up into an easy to follow story line (some might find the subject matter hard to stomach )but the acting is superb and the gory violence very believable at times. it is hard to compare another film like this where the acting and dialogue go so well together and the lead actor is a joy to watch (perfect casting).in my opinion better than battle royal and probably my fave film due to the acting and crisp and psychotic performance a gem.

As psycho-killer movies go "Lesson of the Evil" is up there with the best of them. It's by the Japanese horror maestro Takashi Miike and is set for the most part around a school where handsome young teacher Hasami, (Hideaki Ito), has his own somewhat extreme methods of dealing with rule-breakers. Miike's genius is to treat everything so matter- of-factly the film is almost banal to begin with before letting rip. Although extremely violent, this isn't torture porn but a brilliant slow-burner than builds to a fairly devastating and disturbing climax. I certainly can't see this playing in parts of America where school shootings have become almost common place. By making the villain someone who, in another film. should have been the hero Miike neatly subverts the genre, (think "Dexter"). There's also a nice self- depreciating streak of humour running through the picture, not to mention several great recordings of 'Mack the Knife'. Excellent, if very unnerving.

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.

LESSON OF THE EVIL is a relentless, remorseless look at pure evil. It is so brutally violent, it numbs you into submission and you are unsure how you should react to it. There is little joy in watching the film (though there is dark, black humour throughout) but it stands as a unique testament to infant terrible director Takashi Miike's crazy view of the world.

The film's first half is almost as restrained as the second is violently eruptive. The setting is an elite private school in Japan where teachers and administrators discuss the prevalent problem of students cheating during exams, mostly using their cell phones. Numerous solutions are proposed but the most radical comes from Seiji Hasumi, the charming, popular English teacher, who suggests body searches and signal jammers, but who's notions are rejected as being counterproductive to keeping the schools environment healthy. Undeterred, Hasumi continues keeping tabs on students and learns of widespread bullying, harassment and illicit teacher student relationships. You think he's going to turn into some kind of saviour, and the films tone seems to be heading this way, but then, and there is no fine way to describe it, Hasumi goes psycho. He explodes into a violent killing machine during a nightly school function, exacting brutal death, wielding a shotgun, pumping bullets into anything that moves and talking to his demons to leave little doubt he is a complete loony.

Knowing a bit about Takashi Miike and the reputation that precedes him, this midway shift should not be surprising (or even considered a spoiler). His films are almost exclusively violent, of that there is no doubt, but they revel in tasteless torture porn that is not for the squeamish. LESSON is no different and if anything, the overlong period of exposition, detailing the tribulation of a small group of students at the school, seems overcooked in contrast to the rushed, extended finale, which is really where Miike displays his skills as filmmaker. Hasumi is molded in the fashion of television's DEXTER—a likable serial killer with a wide grin and charismatic looks to match who is also extremely lucky in giving anyone investigating the deaths, a slip. But while the last hour is a lot of fun (at one point Hasumi off's countless students wearing a rain jacket and swaying to the jazzy tune of MACK THE KNIFE) it is indescribable, nearly unwatchable and after sometime, repetitious to the point of being unbearable. And, just when you think there might be some end in sight, Miike turns a moment of hope into a Michael Haneke moment of viewer patience testing ala FUNNY GAMES. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you know you're in for a good time.

From the highly prolific but also controversial Japanese director, Takashi Miike, who's made virtually all kinds of movies in his filmmaking career so far, Lesson of the Evil arrives as yet another twisted thriller but unlike Audition or Ichi the Killer, it's a mostly dull cinema whose only strength is its blood-soaked massacre that goes on throughout its third act.

Based on the novel of the same name, Lesson of the Evil tells the story of a very charming high-school teacher who is loved by his students & respected by his peers. His flamboyant personality however is only a mask that hides his true face, which ultimately surfaces when he decides to tackle the issue of bullying & bad behaviour among the student body with his own deranged plan.

Written & directed by Takashi Miike, Lesson of the Evil has all the bizarre elements that one usually expects from this notorious director but the story is just all-out flat, vapid & lifeless despite all the gore content it packs in. For the majority of its runtime, it's just one segment placed on top of another with no idea of where it's supposed to be headed until it arrives at its extended climax, where it redeems itself a little.

It's in the last 30 minutes or so where the movie finds its sure footing but it's a long wait to get there. The entire climactic segment has blood smeared through each n every frame and is possibly the only entertaining segment in the story and while it has the ability to shock & upset the newcomers, it's also fun in its own wicked manner for those who are pretty much used to this director's works. If only it was like this from the start.

On an overall scale, Lesson of the Evil is a brutal, violent & disturbing nightmare if one only takes the final act into account for the remainder of the story only turns it into a very boring thriller. There are plenty of interesting elements scattered around and the lead character is undoubtedly an intriguing creation but a more cohesive structure, better editing & stronger characterisation would've improved the whole experience by a significant margin.

The film takes a lot of time to build the main character, but it is told in a vague way and does not show the unique features of the killer.

The student character cast is not deep, perhaps because of the lack of time, if it was made into a series, it would probably be better.

The end of the movie is really crazy, even though it's weird and some of the student character scenes are a bit goofy, but this is a murder movie lol.

But if you consider it as a regular murder movie, it still deserves a high rating.

Takashi Miike seems to dabble in all sorts of genres but he returns to his dark comedic roots in this one. The story is about a teacher who appears nice but there is something about him. He is almost too nice and cartoony a real dream teacher. Everything is going great till certain characters begin to look into his past that's when things really start to move. The film is long being over 2 hours if i remember correctly. The film covers topics such as bullying, child abuse, multiple personality disorder and builds up to one crazy second half which i will not spoil at one point it gets quite surreal and whilst being violent is not very gory. Unfortunately, it does the possible sequel thing which i believe likely won't come. The only problem with the film is it may drag if you are in the wrong mood and the music gets a little repetitive the only song it plays is mack the knife the original and the American version. It is very cartoony in the acting style and almost feels like an adaptation of a manga or anime. story 3/5 acting 4/5 gore and effects 3/5

Two things strike me in hindsight having seen "Lesson of Evil": firstly, the IMDB's detailing of the fact it barely got a general release anywhere in the world - was limited, it would seem, to the multiplexes of its country of origin (Japan) and the various fringe screenings that prop up the more obscure film festivals around the world. Secondly, there does not exist, at time of writing, any kind of sequel or continuation of the piece - something it seems to infer will be the case as it closes. Was this a result of the director, a certain Takashi Miike, holding up his hands and admitting he'd dropped the ball with this project?

If one, or both, of these reasons is the case, then it would not be very hard to work out why. Certainly, viewing "Lesson of Evil" half a decade after its production, in the wake of various world events such as the forming of the Islamic State of the Iraq and Levant, is unpleasant - one critic writing for Variety Magazine cited as to how the film left him cold after having seen it in the wake of the Anders Breivik perpetrated massacre in Norway in 2011. Others have pulled it up for its poor attention to pace, wherein the film plods along in its depiction of a mundane high-school relations drama before inexplicably exploding into the sort of exploitation-like shock-fest one might expect Miike to lend his name to. Unfortunately for the gore-hounds, there is some 90 minutes of uninspired backlog to sit through first...

To divulge too much on what precisely it is that constitutes said shock-fest would be to spoil things, which in one sense is the problem: a dilemma is faced having seen "Lesson of Evil", and that is as to whether you view what takes up the bulk of its final reel as the perfect dizzying conclusion to a tautly made film about realistic people going about their lives, in which case you are going to reward the film generously, or whether you believe it to be gratuitous nonsense, in which case you must provide the film with a rating as lowly as possible.

Annoyingly, I have sat on the fence - I was repulsed and perhaps a little offended, but I did not switch the film off in a fit of anger; the song over the film's closing credits seems to beg us to "...think about it", and I have done, and I am still unsure what to make of what I have seen. While perhaps you could say it was similar in tone and content - flashes of raw violence in-between a lead's regimented existence - the film is not necessarily ABOUT ANYTHING in the way "American Psycho" was, and Miike has certainly not made a film with the flair or zeal of something like "Taxi Driver".

The setting is an everyday Japanese high-school: small groups of kids hang out and muck around, turning first-aid classes into a bit of a laugh. Teachers are frustrated at kids for cheating during exams via cellular phones. One particular elderly teacher is singled out by the pupils for their own, private game of ridicule because of the way he clears his throat. In amidst all this is Hideaki Itô, who plays English teacher Seiji Hasumi. He seems friendly. He chats to female students without appearing lecherous; catches one pupil reading a comic book in class, but doesn't go ballistic and takes early morning jogs.

Things become a little more complicated around the school when a parent is adamant nobody is doing anything about a bullying problem his daughter is suffering, and rumours of an abusive relationship between a gym teacher and a female surface. After this, Hasumi himself has to deal with an advance from one of his own female pupils and then.... people begin showing up dead in apparent suicides.

Miike has essentially made one, long drama set inside of a high-school chock full of all those day-time soap opera clichés, but decided to drop into proceedings a series of mysterious deaths which turn out to be the work of a psychopathic serial killer with rooted connections to the school and its personnel.

Half of me wants to dismiss the film as gratuitous nonsense which forces us to sit through a truly harrowing passage of film whereby lambs are essentially led to a kind of slaughter under the pretence of safety and security. Film-making, in the traditional sense, appears to go out of the window during these scenes as a bloody free-for-all is indulged in to a poppy soundtrack of crooner music and the disturbing interior mise-en-scene of a kindergarten. Nothing is necessarily under the microscope and if there is anything at all to be said, I missed it. The other half wants to commend it for being a tautly made drama which burns and burns before erupting, not unlike "Carrie", into the graduation ball from Hell.

It is not without its moments whereby Miike demonstrates his ability as a film-maker - one particular scene, whereby a student is at the mercy of the psychopath and tied up in a darkened classroom at night, is shot to a slowly rotating fan inside of an air-vent which periodically casts light and shadow on the room thus bringing to our attention the stark nature of the life/death situation.

Whether you enjoy the film or not will be dependent on two things: your threshold to being patient and your threshold to being tolerant of controversy in art. In the modern world, tolerance (towards prophet-Muhammad cartoons; the censoring of the n-word during day-time broadcasts of "The Dam Busters"; the periodic banning of "Grand Theft Auto" games in Australia, etc.) and attention spans are on the fast decline, which might infer as to why "Lesson of Evil" struggled with some critics and most audiences. While I would recommend "Lesson of Evil", I would do so with caution.

One of Takeshi Miike's best films; one that is far to complex to sum up briefly (and I don't do long reviews). But I will say this; if you enjoy seeing irritating teenagers get theirs in a variety of bloody ways, this is the film for you.

Claret filled, violent, creepy and funny.

The plot (at first) seemed like there would be some interesting things in terms of character development. The synopsis also hints that maybe he is actually killing those that are bullying or assaulting people. Essentially, a vigilante.

Nope, it is just a crazy guy killing people.

I am not very hard to please when it comes to movies. There's no tragic backstory, nor any interesting story as to why he is the way he is. Nor even an interesting aspect of his personality.

Other killers in movies at least have an interesting part of their personality. This is just 2 hours of a psycho who shows 0 interesting character traits, leaving him not only a boring lead, but making the entire movie essentially boring.

For the first half of the movie I figured the second half would give character development, instead it was just 2 hours wasted.

I've seen plenty of movies that had a poor plot and some executed poorly, but still had redeeming traits...This movie though, had no redeeming traits.

This begins so well - fabulous photography and cool horror, measured and mysterious. Many elements of Japanese school and teenage life are introduced, including sophisticated methods of cheating at exams, teacher harassment of girls and boys and bullying. Indeed for most of the film we are intrigued and fascinated and even appalled as matters progress. It is just that instead of all this leading up to some revelatory or vengeful denouement we get 30/40 minutes constant and irrational slaughter in which we have no interest or involvement in at all. Perhaps the film should have run backwards and the early scenes be seen as explanatory but presented in the manner before us it appears sterile and uninteresting however colourful and violent.

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.

I'll be honest with you all out there. I'm into the old Takashi Miike flicks but seen onelast week my review was simple, the gore is gone.

This one has no gore at all but a lot of red stuff, that's good for thegeeks out there but clocking in over 2 hours that's already long, the first hour is blah blah and nothing really happens. It's from halfway throughout the flick that things go wrong.

It's all about shooting with a shotgun and that's it, with Mack the Knife playing all over the killings.

Did I like it, I don't think so, even as it's stated as a mix between Dexter and Battle Royal. It's just above mediocre.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

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 ...

I was absolutely floored by this film. Most slasher films don't even come close to how well done this one is, even the good ones. The production value alone on this is amazing. The story is great. The acting is well done. The directing and cinematography are on point. And it goes where most slasher films do not. It touches upon sexual taboos, but without being sexually explicit or using sexual shock value, which was interesting. And while this does technically classify as a "slasher" film, he is not primarily using a knife, but a shotgun. However I love the way it looks when the people get shot. It it not overdone or underdone, but is actually hyper-realistic. And the way they move when they get shot is quite captivating and really great to watch. I absolutely loved this movie and any other horror film will too. It's a ten, and not just for its genre either.

This is the most boring psycho killer movie I have ever seen in my entire life. Half of the movie makes you yarn. Don't know why Japanese make these kind of boring movies. Even if the concept is good, narration and screenplay is most boring fare. Why all psycho killer movies in Japan made on school teacher killing students and taking revenge on students. It's time for Japanese makers to redefine and rethink the making and screenplay of their movies.