Liverleaf

Eisuke Naitô's Liverleaf is a strange, unpleasant, depressing and mildly disturbing film, it starts out as a revenge drama and ends up as something else, I can't say I particularly liked the film as a whole as I felt that its message about the cyclical nature of violence and bullying is muddied by its eventual pervading theme of obsession. 

The first half is coherently written, well acted and effective at getting you emotionally involved in its lead character and her family, the story follows a girl named Nozaki who is relentlessly bullied at school, so much so that the bullying eventually culminates with her classmates burning down her family home murdering her mother and father and leaving her little sister on life support.

We then follow Nozaki as she begins to pay back blood for blood, murdering the students responsible.
I would have been satisfied if the plot stayed like that, however it takes some unnecessary turns that just felt unnatural to me.

It never really fully justifies the decisions certain characters make with anything substantial, the second half of the film feels a bit incoherent and pointless as it deviates from its original central themes of bullying and revenge.

What I did like was its use of music, which gave certain scenes an operatic quality to them and some of the cinematography was good for what was obviously a very low-budget film, it also has some very intense moments and I was never bored watching it. 
However overall I can't say I'd recommend it as there are far better Japanese revenge films out there than Liverleaf and I don't see myself ever watching it again.