The Drifting Classroom

Hi. I'm on a tear with Obayashi-- this director is great, and I am checking them off.

Hard to beat Hausu, but this review intends to tell people, if that's the only one you've seen, you'll like this one.

Apparently as time got on, Obayashi became less drastic in tone, more "romantic," (although I can see there is a deep emotional thread in his films, especially about young love), and the surrealism turned more into black and white melodrama.

Hausu - School in the Crosshairs - now Drifting Classroom. This is the spectrum from midnight movie weirdness, to weirdness with young love, to young love with sci-fi, quantum mechanics, and a whole hell of a lot of sand.

No crazy visual overlays. But weird sets, bizarre editing, and a muppet that is unsettling to look at. Get in there and vibe!

I guess the movie lives up to the title as the story, plot and characters drift around. You have no idea exactly what is going on. I have been informed it is based on a popular Manga ...where the director toned down a lot of the dark creepy stuff.. remember, this movie does have soem dark creepy stuff happening! The manga is volumes long. They tried to condense the massive story into 2 hours. That usually doesn't work out as in this case.

Would I watch it again, sure. Would I recommend it to anyone.. .maybe. But only because the name Ôbayashi does tell me some effort into making it good is usually there.

Hello,

I was in the movie too but only as an extra. I was part of the group of kids from NAS Kamiseiya & Atsugi. It was a great learning experience and lots of fun. Everyone from the Director on down was polite and energetic. I'm hoping to get lucky and get the movie again because I gave a copy to my friend to record before I left Japan but never got it back. I remember the person who played Kenny and was glad to see someone had at least left comment on the movie :D When we saw it on opening night I remember seeing several people get emotional towards the end of the movie. Was really good to see that everyone's effort had impressed the

The filming of it was fun and a great learning experience for me. My family and I watched the premiere on opening night in Tokyo, Japan. The movie is interesting in storyline content, and one that leaves the ending to the viewer. Its Science Fiction content would leave any open minded writer the room to expand and possibly create another world within that the character's are thrust into. It is about a band of kids who attend an international school. An unusal warp gate pulls them into an unknown future, and one that isn't so friendly in the beginning. It deals with a boy who must break away from the ties of being irresponsible, to lead the survivors. As I said, the ending is left to the viewer. And for the time period that the movie was released, left a couple of tears trailing from audience members.

My name is Arthur Johnson, and I was in the movie. I played the role of Kenny. It was a great film from beginning to the end. Even though special effects wasn't that great back then. But all the slob, mud, sand, and fire, we had to endure. I think was well worth it. Especially the huge cock roaches we had to battle in the classrooms. I'm glad I had that experience of doing that movie, because I am currently living in California, trying to revamp my acting career. Even though I am in a 14 yr drout. lol I don't think anybody who was in the movie is going to read this. Since it was in 1987, and filmed in Japan. A lot of people in the states never even heard about it. In american, the movie was called Drifting Classroom. I don't know why everybody post the Japanese translation. It was also an honor to work with Troy Donahue, and all my other high school classmates.