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Director Neo Sora, known for an intimate portrait Opus, about his father, delivers his feature debut with this intricate, beguiling and often brilliant picture. Co-produced by filmmaker Anthony Chen, the project manages to be dystopian commentary, youthful narrative, and high school dystopia. This production fuses the essence of John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club with subversive school narratives, along with an echo of Paul Schrader’s Mishima—minus the ritual suicide.

A Futuristic High School Setting

At a secondary school in a Japanese city in the future, students are oppressed by the reactionary xenophobia of adult figures. Periodic earthquake warnings, and actual earthquakes themselves, generate a pervasive atmosphere of contained fear that the officials claim warrants a perpetual clampdown. The government head often states that troublesome factions are using the chaos of the earthquakes to commit lawlessness.

In the school, there is an nearly overt bigoted attitude for pupils who are from diverse heritages in addition to those who have alternative or defiant views.

A Prank Which Provokes Surveillance

On a particular day, the administrator grows angry to find that a mischievous individual has positioned his automobile up on its end in the school grounds, like a Stonehenge monolith. Based on evidence, he suspects the school’s cool-kid gang of rebels who have been encouraged by liberal teacher their mentor to hang out together in the designated student space.

This group includes a central character, another individual, Kou, with Korean roots, Chinese student Ming, a globally-minded learner, and nerdy Ata-chan.

A Surveillance-Focused Development

But the angry school head lacks concrete evidence, and the story leaves unclear which person carried out the act or the way it was accomplished. Out of frustration and vengeance, he implements a CCTV monitoring and biometric tracking on campus, labeled an obvious nod to a historical surveillance model.

This technology watches the pupils' behavior resulting in a significant disruption in the school, like a collective nervous breakdown. This is notably challenging for the main students, for whom the erosion of personal freedom could imply even as they courageously oppose this new oppression, they must hide their emotional connection.

An Ambiguous Conclusion

This is a movie that chooses not to give us clear storylines, well-defined personalities, or clear meanings. The strict administrator himself may not actually be as harsh as he appears. This is a very stylish, thoughtful, heartfelt movie in which common adolescent struggles might be quite as important as any political commentary.