Eyes that change into red marbles and jump out of their sockets. Exploding heads. Blood spattered on the lens. And all of that in only the first five minutes. As the Gods Will is vintage Miike Takashi: a hyperbolic high-school slasher.
The protagonist is the bored teenager Shun Takahata, who finds himself with his classmates in a real-life game in which they have to take up arms against a bunch of peculiar gods. The rules are unknown, the reason is unknown, the result always the same: everyone dies a gruesome death apart from the winners. Following an and-then-there-were-none scenario reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Battle Royale, the group of survivors gets smaller and smaller.
If you wish, you can regard As the Gods Will as a commentary on the influence of violent games. It’s also possible to write an essay about the battle between humanist values and fascism, personified in the film by Takahata’s maniacal adversary Amaya. But it’s probably better to see As the Gods Will just as the director describes it in interviews: good fun. See also Over Your Dead Body.
Film details
- Country of production
- Japan
- Year
- 2014
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2015
- Length
- 118'
- Medium/Format
- File
