Teenagers take chances that, to the adults in their lives, are sheer idiocy (as I know first-hand from both sides of the teenager-adult divide). These days anything they do or say can also end up on social media, which can instantly turn an adolescent goof into a mass roasting by thousands of strangers. Short of taking away their smartphones, which would be like exiling them to Siberia, what can be done?
Takaomi Ogata's "The Hungry Lion," which premiered at the 2017 Tokyo International Film Festival, does not answer that question with finger-pointing or hand-wringing. Rather, with cool restraint and precision, the film illustrates the process by which the internet destroys, celebrates and forgets a young life touched by scandal.
The entire story plays out in 74 on-screen minutes, with one scene fading starkly into the next — and not a single wasted second. No one comes off particularly well, including the heroine, for reasons best left unexplained. And no one deserves what happens to her.
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