Aku no kyôten

Plot synopsis:
An English teacher named Seiji Hasumi (Hideaki Itō) is loved by his students and respected by his peers. He graduates from Harvard University with an MBA, and works at Morgenstern, a European investment bank, for two years. Hasumi returns to Japan to pursue high school teaching. However, his outward charm masks his true nature. In reality, Hasumi is a sociopath who is unable to feel empathy for other human beings. Specifically, he has a severe antisocial personality disorder. Having killed both of his parents and his former tutor at the age of fourteen, Hasumi turns into a fiendishly clever killer. During his time in the States, Hasumi meets a partner in crime, an American named Dave, who thinks he shares the same "hobby" as Hasumi – killing people for fun. The two can be seen carrying buckets full of human blood, bones, and organs somewhere, giving off the notion that they committed numerous murders while working together. Hasumi eventually kills his partner by knocking him out and burning him alive inside a barrel, stating that while Dave enjoys killing for fun, Hasumi does not.
Back in Japan, Hasumi chooses to deal with problems like bullying and student sexual harassment, starting by dealing with the school cheating issue. Upon collecting all of the students' cell phones prior to their exams, Hasumi secretly uses a cell phone jammer to completely prevent any cheating during the test. The group of students that had cheated on previous exams became suspicious after none of the group's cell phones have service during the test and immediately suspect the adviser of the Radio Club, Tsurii - a loner Physics teacher. They are then confronted by Tsurii himself who clarifies that he was not responsible for the jamming. A man who regularly meets with the school to complain about students bullying his daughter, Rina, is murdered. Someone has replaced the bottles of water he kept around his house to scare off cats with kerosene, as the man is a chainsmoker the bottles soon catch fire and explode. Tsurii soon meets with the intelligent ringleader of the cheating group, Keisuke, revealing his suspicions of Hasumi. Tsurii explains he has dug into Hasumi's past and found strange details, such as at another school where Hasumi started his teaching career that later had four student suicides. During this time, however, Hasumi had bugged the room and learned of Tsurii's suspicion, and confronts him on a train, murdering him and making his death appear as a hanging suicide. Hasumi then confronts Keisuke after the announcement of Tsurii's suicide causes him to panic. Hasumi knocks Keisuke out and ties him up until the end of school, after which Hasumi tortures him into admitting that he and his friends were indeed cheating. Hasumi checks that Keisuke didn't tell others of Tsurii's suspicions, before killing him and hiding his body.
During the same time period, Hasumi is brought to the attention of a blackmail case from one of his students. A store owner, Meka, caught a female student, Miya, shoplifting but swears not to charge her for it. However, PE teacher Shibahara blackmails Miya, as he has recorded her admission of shoplifting, into giving him sexual favors or risk being charged. Hasumi, assures Miya that a blackmail and statutory rape case is more serious than shoplifting and affirms to her that she is safe from the law and no longer needs to succumb to the blackmail. Miya later meets Hasumi on the school roof, she thanks him with a hug that advances into a kiss and the two become lovers. In the meantime, Hasumi finds out about art teacher Kume's sexual relationship with a male student; he blackmails Kume into lending him his luxury apartment. Hasumi later takes Miya to the apartment and the two have sex. Hasumi presses Miya into giving him access to an online private discussion board that his students use, anonymously making claims about the murder of Rina's father, accusing delinquent student Tadenuma, who had targeted Rina online previously. After a fight breaks out at the school, Hasumi invites Tadenuma out for a drink and murders him; the students later assume that Tadenuma ran away from home.
Events have passed until Hasumi's homeroom students are staying overnight in the school, preparing an elaborate haunted house for the school cultural festival. Hasumi lures Miya to the rooftop, knocking her out and throwing her off the roof to fake her suicide; as she had grown suspicious of Tadenuma's disappearance. When another student comes to the roof looking for Miya, she finds the suicide note forged by Hasumi; he quickly kills her too. As Hasumi has no method of masking his murder of the second student, he quickly comes up with a plan. Hasumi to start a school massacre against his students for which he will frame Kume, who frequents a shooting range, by wearing his shoes throughout the killings. Throughout the massacre, Hasumi's shotgun can be seen possessed by ex-partner in crime Dave, talking to him. As the students hear the bangs of the shotgun, Hasumi tricks most of the students by using the intercom to warn them of "an intruder with a shotgun" and orders the students to proceed to the roof - which he had locked access to beforehand - and wait until help arrives. With some of the students proceeding to the stairs to the roof, another group hide inside the art room, closing it off with fire shutters and barricading the entry points. One of the students, skilled archer Kakeru, manages to escape the school far enough with his archery gear to find a man who is able to call the police. He later runs back to the school to rescue his crush Satomi, who is found trying to escape by roping out of a window of the art room and slips, breaking her ankles. Kakeru screams out her name, alerting Hasumi to their presence, who then proceeds to aim out of a window at the two students. The Kakeru readies an arrow and fires at Hasumi, but Hasumi fires as well, deflecting the arrow off-course, slaying Kakeru, and then Satomi. With the group of students still in the art room thinking they are safe, they are unaware that they did not untie the rope that Satomi had used to rappel down out of. Hasumi climbs the rope and proceeds to slay the group.
The massacre nears its end with two students who survive by dressing up two of their dead peers in their clothing and hiding inside the school as they toss the corpses down an emergency escape chute, tricking Hasumi into thinking the bodies are the last two students on his checklist attempting to escape. After the massacre at the school, Hasumi attempts to cover up his actions by making it seem like he had been handcuffed and knocked out by Kume and making it look like he committed suicide afterwards with Hasumi's shotgun, but his plans are foiled due to one of the two surviving students pointing out to the police that the school's training defibrillator records audio and contains evidence of one of the murdered students speaking his murderer's name prior to being slain by Hasumi. However, Hasumi plans to use his recently learned knowledge of Norse mythology as his legal defence by suggesting his acts to be "the will of God." The surviving student who pointed out the defibrillator exclaims that Hasumi is crazy, but the other surviving student says Hasumi is "starting the next game." It is then revealed that Miya survived after Hasumi tossed her off the school's roof and calls out Hasumi's name, ending the movie with "to be continued."

Tags: violence

Review:
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.
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.
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 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 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).
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.
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.
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.
And thank God for Miike for his consistently high-quality direction and film-making skill..
Some may watch the movies and try to learn from Teacher Miike.
Everything is going great till certain characters begin to look into his past that's when things really start to move.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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?
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.
In amidst all this is Hideaki Itô, who plays English teacher Seiji Hasumi.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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..
Note: Check me out as the "Asian Movie Enthusiast" on YouTube, where I review tons of Asian movies.Lesson of the Evil (2012) (Japanese Horror) A popular high school teacher concocts an extreme plan to deal with the rise of bullying and bad behavior among the student body in this film by Takashi Miike.
The structure of the film also makes it difficult to predict which students will survive (if any).
Needless to say, the direction is solid.Now, there may be some controversy regarding the long-sustaining finale that uses a certain kind of graphic violence against school kids.
In any case, the finale is deliciously entertaining and exciting.If one adds "Lesson of the Evil" to "Goosebumps: The Movie", "Horror Stories", "Kotsutsubo", and the final installment to the "Hellsing Ultimate" anime films, it looks like 2012 is going to be a strong year for Asian horror..
To all people that aren t morally crippled I want to say that this is not a funny movie-not in the slightest.
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.
It might just be Takashi Miike's most mainstream movie of his that I've seen, but still pretty crazy as always.Its basically a thriller comedy about a likable teacher who goes on killing students and parents making it look like a suicide.Before you watch it, you have to know what you're in for, its one of those movies that doesn't take itself seriously, its satiric for most of the time and it knows just when to be funny.
The story is pretty ridiculous, but it manages to be unexpected and thrilling, its also gory and pretty funny, it had the whole audience laughing.On the other hand, it was kind of messy like every other Takashi film, but these messy sequences and flashbacks are relieved by other scenes with interesting music choices that fit perfectly into whats going on, even adding a little humor to it, and some dance moments and funny dialogue by the students at the wrong moment.
It felt similar to the first "Scream" and reminded me in some ways to the ridiculousness in Robert Rodriguez movies.I'd recommend it to people who liked "Django Unchained", "Battle Royale", "Machete", "Videodrome", "A Clockwork Orange", or any Takashi Miike film..
Takashi Miike is one of my favourite Japanese directors, but ...
And sadly this film is a great big miss.
We're almost halfway through the film before the signature Miike violence kicks in.
It was very reminiscent of Gus Van Sant's movie 'Elephant' based on the Columbine school shootings.
The psycho teacher wanders round the school with a high powered rifle wasting his pupils one by one.
Takashi Miike one of Japan's most biggest horror movie guru is finally  back with "Lesson of the Evil".
Well at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) we had  the chance to see the movie.
Mr Hasumi, English teacher at a Japanese  secondary school, is every teenager's dream.
After some more events Hasumi shows his true colors and starts  an rampage within the school.
For the ones expected a real horror kind of movie you will be  disappointed mainly because this isn't one.
But  it is a typical Takashi movie it again is an reflection of things that  are going down in society and all the horrors it can produce.
I am not  sure if Takashi wanted to make a statement or just give us another bold  and bloody movie.
After the movie develops it gets more in your face by  the minute showing you what harmful products human being are to one and  other.
He tries to put down at  least the character Hasumi in different lights and really develops the  character in the first part of the movie.
You will feel that the  students really are cannon fodder as the story develops and the  subplots are completely destroyed in the second part of the movie.
Although 2+ hours  was abit on the long side and makes the movie drag a bit from time to  time.
As I mentioned the second part of the movie is where Takashi shines  again in his old ways.
You feel the tension rise as Hasumi is changing  into a not so perfect and lovely character.
Hasumi comes to school and  starts playing people out to each other at first in an none harmful way  just to set up his master plan.
Blood goes everywhere  students getting shot full in the face and Hasumi does it with a laugh.
You can say it is literally shooting  skeet without remorse all the little subplots of the students are being  shot down.
You can say that this is maybe one of Takashi's most straight forward  movies, there isn't a deep underlying story to be found here.
The movie is in your  face and focuses on the extend of the violence in the shooting.
This isn't his best  work but it is a signal the master of extreme violence is back and it  makes a mark!
What really dragged this movie down was the editing and how the teachers and students interactions in this film was so boring to sit through.
Plus the editing made it seem like it was made by film students with an expensive camera within their budget.
The only somewhat interesting thing between the whole teachers and students dynamics was the whole blackmailing ordeal and how the sociopath try to capitalize on it.
I personally think it should have focused in a bit more on the build up of the relationship between the teacher who is a sociopath and his partner in crime in the past.
Overall, this isn't a terrible movie but there is just way better Takashi Miike films out there.5/10.
Maybe it's just me, but it sure was hard to keep my eyes off the eye candy that was the school teacher.
I don't know where Takashi Miike got him from but I hope he gets signed to do American films.
To tell you the truth, I'm surprised they allowed a film with such student carnage to be made.
I would've given this movie a higher rating, but it was flooded with so much clichéd caricatures that it only looked like just an ultraviolent anime come to life.