Tag (2015) Isn't The Movie You Think it is.

The vilification of women, the punishable aggression inflicted upon them, the voyeuristic lens that peeks at their panties every time a gale sweeps up schoolgirls' skirts- Tag (2015) should have been made in poor taste, considering Japanese auteur Sion Sono's vita of films dedicated to the sexploitation of women (Love Exposure, The Virgin Psychics).

But it wasn't. Instead, Tag became a vision of modern cinema and a compelling study in gender roles. All in its scant 90 minutes of surrealistic dream sequences that'd leave you bewildered, yet, strangely, wanting for more.

Set in small town Japan, the film's unusual happenings unravels with a thriller when two school buses (packed with laughing high schoolgirls looking as sunburst as an ad from Sovil Titus) gets sliced into half by a mysterious gust of wind. Saved by coincidence, the timid lone survivor, Mitsuko (played charmingly by Austrian-Japanese actress Reina Triendl), begins a race for her life from a series of attackers.

Part of Sono's third release of six films he scheduled for 2015,  Tag trails behind the teen-survival genre he's been made famous by. But where the plot thickens, as it veers away from the campy destruction of entire high school of females, is at the vein of the movie: an element of gender oppression.

As Mitsuko jumps from one paranormal encounter with bazuka-wielding teachers to another with a bovine bride, her idenity travels inter-dimensionally with her. From the ingenue she is, to the conflicted bride Keiko (Mariko Shinoda), to the marathoner Izumi (Erina Mano), the all-female cast prevalent in two-thirds of the movie- until we fall into the rabbit hole of a male-dominated dystopia toward the end- pounds at a tough fact of life often overlooked: its characters are running away from a rite of passage society has prescribed, from adolescence to adulthood.

That said, Tag subverts as it delights. The movie, adapted from Yusuke Yamada's 2001 novel, was initially premised upon the tag-you're-it idea, that anyone who shares a similar surname dies. But Sono was resolute to render his movie different from other adaptations. Cinematically, the movie pans across beautiful landscapes all shot by drones. The scenes are a vision as it softens the gore and breaks away from the offbeat pace Sono's built into the surrealistic movie he'd already paved from start. Despite the violence, the scenes still feel as soft as the film's recurring goose-down pillow.

Orchestrating the movie to sublime effect is also its film score. It matches the revealing scene when Mitsuko confronts the true enemy of her fictitious drama: men; particularly, men who fetishizes the Japanese schoolgirl culture enough to create the insufferable reality we find ourselves trapped in. And by the film's close, the music falls away into post-rock group Mono's beautiful soundtrack, a tireless melody of downtempo guitar and bass.

Perhaps, what's even stranger than fiction- a cinematic experience I reserve for astounding films- was the lump I swallowed at the back of my throat after a movie as cerebral, as violent, and as offsetting as Tag. While modern day directors strike the iron of feminism while it's hot topic to avert the male gaze, Sion Sono's awe-inspiring work brings it back in the most visceral, most grotesque, and most beautiful way possible. He wasn't turning away from a problem, he was staring right into its dispassionate, ugly face.

Below, its official trailer and (yes!) full movie.