Film Review #78: BAD EDUCATION

Taiwan’s film industry has always been a passionate field of study for me, but admittedly I have lesser knowledge in more contemporary releases than I would like. That is something I have been taking an active effort in remedying, and from my preconceptions of the title, Kai Ko’s Bad Education aimed to be an at least interesting watch. Films that take a critical look at the schooling system and the students in them, such as 2020’s Babi, can often use that framework to tap into a wider social commentary, which, despite potential heavy-handedness, could be enlightening or revealing.

Bad Education begins as such, announcing headfirst its thematic ethos in the form of a question, before we go into the story proper. Three boys; Wang Hung-Chuan, Han, and Chang Po-Wei, have just graduated high school and are celebrating above a rooftop at night. They drink and talk smack with each other about their future prospects, before deciding to make sure to “solidify” their friendship by telling each other a secret they have never told anyone else. What goes on from there can only be described as an odyssey, as they are left to deal with the consequences of their actions. 

Film still from Bad Education

What will strike audiences right off the bat is the atmosphere that Bad Education seeks to establish. Thoroughly basking in its almost-completely nighttime setting, from sharp lighting to the stark shadows of the night, the movie pushes a slick yet seedy and very much intentionally offsetting tone; stylistic-fluorescent-on-crass. This is accentuated by the various characters that the trio come across their escapade, a continuous string of people of dubious morality that ties back to the film’s central question. It reminded me of, perhaps tangentially, of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, a similar tale of a long journey across one night where the character is introduced to the underbelly of society.

Indeed, that seems to be the main point of the film. The introduction of the three students initially too paints them akin to such a fate, before further revelations are revealed. Kent Tsai, Edison Hong and Berant Zhu, playing the trio, scream and suffer and experience retribution of their own undoing, even when some are more innocent than others. They give it their all in their performances, which is able to push through the aforementioned heavy-handedness that this movie admittedly does suffer from, though I shall give it credit for subverting my expectations on that front. They hit on some visceral nerves, and by the end, it’s hard not to at least sympathise with one of them.

Film still from Bad Education

Bad Education is not an easy watch by any means, which is by design. What it insinuates and shows flies right through any sense of “bad taste” and into the morally abhorrent, but it defiantly pushes those buttons to dig into deeper social issues that are frankly less concerned with education, as the title might suggest, and more on an individual’s sense of morality. If you’re looking to feel uncomfortable, to go through a journey of fear, pain, and ultimately absolution, then this is worth seeking out. At a lean 75 minutes, there are longer films that give far less to think about.

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About the Author:  Wei Li Heng is an avid lover of uncovering and writing about obscure and underseen Asian cinema. He hopes to discover local cinematic gems and share them to a wider audience.

This review was written for SFS Special Presentation: BAD EDUCATION on 26 August and 3 September 2023.

Tickets are available here: https://theprojector.sg/films-and-events/bad-education/