No Life King (1991)

Via the New York Times The solemn intent faces of the Japanese schoolboys playing video games in Jun Ichikawas No Life King bespeak a new type of modern horror Addicted to their favorite new game from which the film takes its title these children have become seriously estranged from the real world The films constant emphasis is on the ways in which this has been allowed to happen and on how emblematic it is of larger attitudes in a technological society When a young boy trying to converse with his mother must compete with a home computer for her attention its not hard to see why the boy has retreated into his own computerdominated world