KIDS has been awarded a Category III rating in Hong Kong. Set in steamy Manhattan on the hottest day of the year, the plot hinges around the exploits of 17-year-old Telly, a self-proclaimed 'virgin surgeon' who brags to his friends about his skill at 'de-virginising' pubescent girls. 'When you deflower a girl, that's it,' he says. 'You were the one. No one else can ever do it.' But Telly is already, unknowingly, infected with the HIV virus. This documentary-style film charts the rise and fall of the lethal Lothario as he moves from conquest to conquest.
The characters in Kids are ferociously precocious. We watch them drink, smoke dope, shoplift, harass homosexuals, brutally beat up an undeserving skateboarder and rape a comatose girl. Played by largely untrained actors, the characters - Telly, his best mate Casper et al - are frighteningly convincing. Unlike the usual Hollywood teen flick featuring smart, articulate adults-in-the-making being played by older actors, Clark's kids are awkward and not always physically attractive. The intimate hand-held photography captures and complements the halting patterns of their speech.
The screenplay (written by 19-year-old Harmony Korine in just three weeks) is both gruelling and captivating. Mindless violence and profane language at the movies are nothing new; but when they're being dished out by children who still like to read comics (albeit ones with titles like Hate), it's disturbing. The sex scenes are particularly unsettling: children chewing at each other's faces, having sex surrounded by cuddly toys.
It's being billed as a true-to-life story, but how accurately does it reflect teen life in the territory? We asked an international group of nine Hong Kong sixth-formers, seven boys and two girls (all over 18), what they thought of it. (All names have been changed.) Q: What's your gut reaction to the film? Andrew: I think it's really exaggerated.
Tim: It tried too hard to be super-realistic.
Tim: But I liked it when they beat that guy up. I saw that in a skateboarding video once. These guys were skating along, saw this guy and whacked him with the back of his skateboard. It was great.
Andrew: Because that's how kids really fight. There's none of this 'Come on, let's fight one-on-one' shit. You get one guy fighting and then everybody just piles in.
