By Cat
SPOILER WARNING
I decided to dabble in Netflix’s foreign film selection to find something to share with you today. It actually came up in my recommended movies list. I guess I’ve been watching a lot of horror lately. It’s almost October, though! This is the best time of year for such things!
This instance is decidedly one of those times where you can’t
judge a film by its title – or even poster for that matter… ok let’s expand
that to even include the Netflix blurbs. I seriously wish that I could have
found some job where it was ok to blatantly share incorrect information like
these blurb writers. I just can’t even… so we’re moving on.
When seeing the movie title, the recently released film by
the same name came to mind. This, however, has a story completely and utterly
different than that of the 2018 film directed by Jeff Tomsic (This Is Not
Happening, Crazy House, Idiotsitter). The newer film explores a group of
friends with a long-running game of tag in the spirit of the school playground
game – just taken to the extreme with cross-country travel and the like. No… no…
I watched the 2015 version directed by Sion Sono (Why Don't You Play in Hell?,
The Whispering Star, Tokyo Vampire Hotel).
Here are the two blurbs that Netflix was kind enough to
misleadingly provide:
- “Alternate realities, Japanese schoolgirls, and lots and lots of blood make this a whole new way of playing tag.”
- “The sole survivor of a freak school bus accident, a shy Japanese high schooler finds herself in a surreal -- and very violent -- alternate universe.”
What the bloody (and I mean that literally) hell, man?!
I must give credit to IMDb for having a more accurate short
synopsis for this movie: ”A girl's life cascades into chaos as everyone around
her suffers a gruesome fate while she herself becomes less and less certain of
who she is and what kind of a world she lives in."
Sadly, I didn’t look at IMDb prior to watching the film. It
left me rather confused through the whole thing. I kept waiting for the big
reveal to show me where the game of tag was involved with the story.
Spoiler alert! It’s not – not really. Do you know how it
fits in? You see it on a poster towards the very end of the movie – the word ‘tag,’
that is. Are you kidding me???!
You might wonder why my reaction is so strong to this
particular misnomer. You can call it my breaking point, I suppose, with the
whole disparity between blurbs and actual film content. Like the Brits seeking
the holiest of chalices with invisible coconut horses, someone needs to sack
the llama in charge of those things.
What the movie boils down to is a completely bonkers display
of spatter and the occasional choreographed fight scene. Nothing seems to make
sense at all. It was just a lot of shrill screaming and running from one
strange scenario to another, with a lot of carnage on the way. There were
moments that I thought there might be a deeper meaning to everything – that,
perhaps, this was a trip through the main character’s subconscious while she
was in some sort of coma following the bus accident. Nope. No such luck.
I can’t say that I liked this film very much, but I CAN say
that at least it wasn’t boring. Just don’t go into it expecting any sort of
real game of tag. Further, for the love of Bob, please don’t let the Japanese
School girl uniform fool you –this movie isn’t for kids at all.
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