Program Note
As a school festival is about to begin, high school teacher Shimobe shows a group of 36 students a video at the AV room. The grotesque and depressing contents of the video lead to the suicide of a student and confusion among the rest of the group. Shimobe then reveals he has hypnotized them to commit suicide following certain signals in the video. Chaos erupts as the students realize there are more than 100 signals and only one student can survive and be released from the spell, but on the condition that the rest of the group dies.
Signal 100 creates its own unique tone by adding the interesting idea of hypnosis to the Battle Royal (2000)-like premise of killing classmates to survive. The game of survival as they go through the 100 signal-induced deaths presents a diverse spectrum of entertainment, while alluding to the state of confusion in adolescents on the brink of adulthood. (Martin LEE)