Sion Sono is a director of extremes — including an extreme dislike of being categorized. Just when you thought you had him pegged as a maker of violent black comedies with classical music scores, such as "Ai no Mukidashi"("Love Exposure"), he turns out heartfelt, albeit still violent, dramas with nuclear disaster themes, such as "Himizu" and "Kibo no Kuni" ("The Land of Hope").

"Real Onigokko" ("Tag") is his latest, and the most bizarre attempt to subvert whatever stereotypes still exist about a so-called Sono film. It looks to be the latest entry in a series of adaptations about a deadly game of "tag" played with unwilling participants, based on Yusuke Yamada's 2001 novel set in a dystopian future society. The novel inspired a hit 2008 movie adaptation, which generated four sequels as well as a TV mini-series.

Sono's film, however, is neither a sequel nor a spin-off; his original script that has nothing to do with the novel, save for the title. (He claims not to have read it prior to the start of filming.) The "tag" element survives — the film is essentially an 85-minute chase sequence — but the "game" being played defies all logic, except that of a nightmare. And yet it made good, scary sense to the non-rational side of my admittedly scrambled brain.