Tag (2015) - Shion Sono

The opening sequence of Shion Sono's Tag certainly starts the film off with a bang, a sequence of creative carnage that is skillfully photographed and directed, which finds an entire group of young school girls excessively torn to shreds by the wind.  The sequence is intense, comical, and excessively absurd, which effectively sets up the viewer for what they are about to experience with Tag, the prolific Japanese filmmakers' latest film.   Shion Sono's Tag is a film that doesn't explain much to the viewer throughout most of its running time, leaving the audience just as confused as the main protagonist,  Mistuko, who finds herself in a world of chaos, where everyone around her repeatedly finds themselves suffer a gruesome fate.  Jumping between what can only be described as alternate realities, Mitsuko finds herself in dangerous and bizarre situations, ones where she is routinely faced with violence and death, with unknown forces seemingly out to destroy her in every alternate reality.  Mitsuko is a character who is constantly on the run, and it is only when she stands up to her oppressors that she truly realizes what is going on.  I wouldn't recommend reading any further if you don't want me to spoil the film's big reveal, as we begin to realize that Mitsuko is the main protagonist in one of the most successful video games, and her fear is what keeps her stuck in this never ending cycle of carnage.  While Tag's big reveal is basically impossible to grasp ahead of time, Sono does does leave hints to what this stories intentions are, as many of these bizarre circumstances Mitsuko finds herself do feel like levels of a video game and the over-sexualized female characters did feel oddly out of place early on, only making sense when we realized they are characters in a video game, an industry that is known for their sexualization of the female body for male entertainment.  While one could certainly think Sono's intentions are centered around the misogyny that is rampant in the video game industry, I'd argue that is selling Tag's message short, as the film seems bigger than that, using the video game industry to comment on the oppressive nature the masculine-driven world has on females, using Mitsuko, a character who had her DNA used for the entertainment of men, to do so.  Shion Sono's Tag is a not a nuanced film by any means, and while its thematic intentions take their time to reveal themselves, Sono has once again created another singular vision, one that is bizarre, violent, and intellectually interesting all at once.  

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