Boy Kills World (2024)

The story opens at night in a swampy jungle. A small boy lies buried up to his neck in mud, a hollow bamboo stalk against his lips so he can breathe. An older voice narrates his interior thoughts; the child's tone belongs to a man remembering what happened. When the Shaman arrives he scolds the boy for failing a test and shoves mud over him again. Years pass in a montage of brutal instruction: the Shaman forces the boy through hand-to-hand combat drills, weapons practice, rolls a carved stone head up a slope to build strength, and gives him hallucinogenic substances that bend his perception. The Shaman repeatedly administers cruel lessons designed to harden and remit the boy's emotions. The boy takes the name Boy for himself and uses the recorded voice of his favorite video game to speak his inner monologue because he no longer remembers what his own voice sounded like.

Before these years of training, Boy had lived in a grim, overcrowded city ruled by the Van Der Koy dynasty. He grows up with a slightly eccentric mother who hides weapons and with a playful younger sister, Mina. The siblings spend afternoons at the arcade and sketch plans for an escape from the metropolis. When an official procession passes their neighborhood the children mock the leader's statue, flipping Hilda Van Der Koy a childish middle finger together. The regime organizes an annual televised purge called The Culling, in which a dozen people are chosen and executed in elaborate spectacle to cow the populace. On the day the Van Der Koys select that year's twelve, Boy, Mina and their mother are dragged before the cameras. Hilda stands on the dais and shoots Boy's mother and shoots Mina; the two women fall dead. The crowd cheers for the spectacle. Boy is left for dead on the street; his ears and voice are mutilated in the aftermath and he survives, unable to hear or speak. Someone leaves him for the elements.

The Shaman finds Boy and carries him into the jungle, nursing him back to life. Over the subsequent years the Shaman crafts Boy into a weapon: he makes him practice stealth, break bones and faces with his hands, master knives and improvised firearms, and endure psychological torment so the child's hatred concentrates on Hilda. Hallucinations of Mina haunt Boy: sometimes she appears bright and laughing, sometimes accusatory; these visions distract him at critical moments and probe the small cracks in the Shaman's conditioning.

When Boy thinks he is ready the two return to the urban sprawl. They sell produce in a market as a cover while Boy scans the streets for Van Der Koy activity. A flower girl hands Boy a blossom and smiles; he crushes the petal, disgusted. Soldiers arrive in armored vehicles. Glen Van Der Koy steps from a car to speak to the crowd about The Culling; he stumbles over a ceremonial speech supplied by Gideon, his relative. A woman in the crowd screams at Glen's cowardice. He fires his pistol in panic and strikes an innocent bystander, releasing chaos. Soldiers under the command of the enforcer known as June 27 descend on the crowd and butcher hecklers; the street becomes a bloodbath. Glen and Gideon retreat and order teams to round up the remaining twelve candidates for that year's spectacle.

Boy disobeys the Shaman's orders to stay hidden and follows the Van Der Koys by clambering into the trunk of one of their cars. He rides with the convoy to an industrial warehouse where Gideon and Glen argue about ruined plans and a ruined written speech; Glen blames Gideon's phrasing for provoking the riot. Melanie Van Der Koy arrives and scolds them both; she reminds them they need a dozen victims for the broadcast and directs Gideon to fetch additional bodies if necessary. Boy slips from the trunk and moves through the warehouse. The hallucination of Mina nags him to be careful; he mouths soliloquies only he can hear. His presence is noticed and armed men pursue him. Boy launches into violence: he disarms and kills soldiers with improvised knives, scalpels and bare-handed strikes, using enemies' guns against them. During the firefight he discovers a man chained to a pillar: Basho. Basho bargains for freedom in exchange for help in killing Hilda; Boy frees him. Basho fights clumsily but ferociously, and together they beat the warehouse's force to death. When Glen tries to flee Basho is holding a heavy vice as a threat; the vice slips, plummets onto Glen's skull and crushes his head, killing him. Basho realizes in horror that he has murdered Glen by accident; Boy takes control of the aftermath.

Basho leads Boy to a rumored hideout of the Resistance only to find the compound gutted. Bodies lie where fighters once coordinated strikes. Only one survivor remains: Benny. Benny greets Basho like a friend, and Basho and Benny embrace. Boyd watches from the doorway as Benny speaks in a language Boy does not understand; he can lip-read enough to grasp the basics, but the majority of Benny's plan is lost in translation. Benny tells Basho the regime stormed the hideout and killed the others. Basho searches for his partner and learns she is dead; he collapses into sobs. Boy is witness and silent comfort. Basho draws a ragged breath and says they will still strike tonight because they know where Hilda will be: at the pre-Culling gala hosted at the Van Der Koy mansion.

The three improvise an insertion plan. They dress Boy in a chef's uniform, smuggle him into the kitchen, and place a cake on a cart as cover. Mina--Boy's hallucination again, or a memory--tells him to nod along and improvise. Inside the mansion the staff are not simple cooks but trained killers; in the kitchen several hands grab knives and attack. Boy's first improvised weapon is a coarse cheese grater that he slashes through a man's forearm, shredding flesh. He drops the grater, grabs a butcher's cleaver and moves into the dining hall. At the table Hilda presides as a grotesque host; Boy steps through the throng, severs a guard's throat with the cleaver and lunges for Hilda's head. He decapitates the figure at the head of the table and holds the head aloft, triumphant--until Gideon steps forward and says the head is a planted decoy. The figure is an actor, part of a trap Gideon set because he anticipated someone would attempt an assassination. Gideon reveals that the gala is an elaborate fence to capture anyone trying to kill Hilda; they have actors and staged drama to bait killers and bring them out.

Soldiers close in and Gideon signals June 27 to take Boy prisoner. Boy fights June 27 in a brutal duel on the dining room catwalk. He pulls at the helmet masking her face and momentarily gets an intimate look. That momentary pause gives June 27 the opening she needs; she shoves Boy over a railing and he crashes to the floor below, unconscious. While he lies out cold he dreams again of his mother, Mina's execution and the regime's brutality. He remembers his tongue removed on the gallows and being left hanging--memories the Shaman has fed on since rescuing him.

When Boy awakens he finds himself bound to a chair with a shock collar locked around his neck. Gideon approaches and tells him he does not want to torture the boy because the act makes him sick; Gideon is brittle and weary of the family's excesses. He explains Hilda's motive: she lives in relentless fear of the Shaman, a figure Gideon and others claim has hunted their line for years, so Hilda created The Culling as a prophylactic ritual designed to unmask threats. Gideon confesses their system has outlived its usefulness and now targets innocents. He slips a scalpel inside Boy's bindings--a furtive gift--then gestures for the guards to take Boy to the studio. Melanie watches the broadcast feed nervously; she keeps Hilda on a short leash because Hilda has grown paranoid and dangerous.

On the live set for The Culling Boy stands chained, collar connected to the rigging. Hilda floats onstage, rapt in the applause until she thinks she sees the Shaman in the audience. She falters off script and reaches toward a hidden pistol; Melanie and technicians wrestle the gun away. The twenty-four–hour spectacle unfolds in a macabre tableaux: a winter wonderland populated by cereal-mascot-headed performers and grotesque elf-costumed executioners. The crew begins to slaughter the twelve chosen victims in staged violence--stabbings, beatings, eviscerations executed for the camera. Boy remembers Gideon's dropped scalpel and frees himself by sawing through rope with the hidden blade. Melanie slams his shock collar and four elf performers seize him. A goat-costumed mallet-wielding executioner lifts a hammer to deliver the killing blow; the hammer descends, but the figure inside the costume turns on the elves, ripping off the goat's head. The goat reveals himself as Basho. Benny then bursts onto the set with a rifle; he and Basho create a diversion, taking out multiple studio personnel. Benny talks through the plan in his native tongue while Boy stands baffled but ready.

Benny hands Boy a brass-knuckle style weapon that fires a bullet each time it connects; Boy trains his punch-blaster on the performers. He uses the hybrid weapon to punch and shoot through a series of assassins, killing a number of them. The three of them--Boy, Benny and Basho--surge into the chaos and begin to cleave through the security force in the studio. Control rooms devolve into screaming as Melanie watches the humiliation of her production. Gideon, in a separate control area, appears strangely calm; Melanie accuses him of orchestrating the disruption and levels a pistol at him. Gideon accepts the charge with a tired shrug.

The fight spills into corridors. Benny throws himself in front of a gun blast to shield Boy; the bullet pierces Benny's chest and he crumples, dying in Boy's arms as he holds his last breath. Basho continues fighting while bleeding from multiple wounds; he takes a hail of shrapnel and staggers. Boy kills Melanie in a charging melee--he slashes her throat with the scalpel he freed himself with--then drags Basho and the dying Benny toward an elevator that descends to Hilda's bunker. In the corridors guards converge on the group. Boy focuses on the incoming fighters, slicing throats and pounding heads. He does not notice Basho's breathing grow shallower as they enter the elevator. Basho collapses from blood loss; Boy fails to be there in his last moments because he is occupied dispatching two more guards. Basho bleeds out and dies while Boy chases toward the bunker door.

At the top of the bunker's elevator stands Gideon, wounded: Melanie's bullet caught him in the chaos earlier. He staggers over, blood seeping through his clothes, and presses a keycard into Boy's hand. Gideon gasps explanations in staccato syllables--he tells Boy Hilda has become a recluse inside a fortified bunker, habitually paranoid, conducting purge ceremonies to feel safe from a threat she believes exists. Gideon shows Boy recordings and memories, saying Hilda has been trapped by her fear for far too long. The hallucination of Mina whispers for Boy not to kill Gideon; the memory begs him to spare the man who just offered access. Despite the hallucination's plea, Boy takes the scalpel and ends Gideon's life by slicing through his throat; Gideon dies before Boy's eyes and the vision of Mina vanishes.

The elevator drops and opens into a dim bunker that tilts between domesticity and vault. A camera and microphone array projects Hilda's image into the elevator shaft. Through the lens Boy sees a facsimile of his mother. The camera's feed gives Hilda a face to speak through; she looks older and consumed by fear. Boy draws out a drawing he still carries--a child's crayon rendering made by Mina--and shows it to the camera. The image unnerves Hilda; she commands the guards on the bunker perimeter to stand down. Boy moves into the command room where a family gallery lines the walls; one portrait contains an image of him and Mina as if they belonged to the Van Der Koy line. Hilda reveals a lie the Shaman taught Boy: she declares Boy is her son. As the truth unspools, Boy's memory shards fall into place. He suddenly recalls nights when Hilda forced him, as a child, to execute dissidents: gun in tiny hands, standing over corpses. He remembers the Shaman's later capture: when Boy fled the city the Shaman seized him, bound him and mutilated him, cutting out his tongue, dosing him with hallucinogens, and telling him Hilda had killed Mina and their mother to manipulate him into becoming an anti-Hilda assassin. The Shaman reconfigured Boy's history to fuel vengeance against Hilda.

June 27 steps forward to escort Boy to Hilda, helmet reflecting the bunker's fluorescent lights. When she removes her face-plate Boy recognizes the woman beneath the mask: Mina. Mina stands blood-dry and weathered, the enforcer's gait masking the child Boy once adored. At the sight of her Boy stumbles into a rush of recollection--he recollects the acts he performed under the Shaman's orders, including killing the Shaman's family in obedience, and the times he thought Hilda had murdered his kin. The Shaman's manipulations cascade into clarity: Boy realizes the Shaman lied to him to make him into an instrument. Hilda, hearing Boy's silence and seeing the drawing, recoils. She orders guards to execute them both for treachery. Mina--in full June 27 armor--raises a hatchet, steps toward Hilda and drives the axe into the matriarch's skull. Hilda dies instantly as the blade embeds in bone and blood sprays the control room monitors.

Guards open fire and a fierce firefight erupts in the bunker. Boy and Mina fight side by side, tearing through bodyguards. Mina swings hatchets and tears through helmets; Boy kills men with a series of flailing, precise strikes--throat stabs, broken necks, and snapped spinal blows--moving with the ruthless training the Shaman gave him. They reach a concrete stairwell where the Shaman confronts them, calm and fierce. The Shaman launches a flurry of strikes, forcing Mina into a defensive posture while Boy and the Shaman circle each other. The Shaman fights with an uncanny, merciless method learned in the jungle; he collapses and rises, adapting to the opponents' styles. Mina slices across the Shaman's chest with a hatchet; the Shaman shakes the blow off and counters with a sequence of joint breaks. The three engage in a brutal melee that stretches across corridors and into a service bay. Boy seizes the Shaman's own bone-sharpened ritual necklace when the Shaman overextends and jams it into the underside of the Shaman's ribs, twisting the ornament until the Shaman chokes, coughs and collapses, his windpipe punctured and blood spilling into his hands. The Shaman dies with the necklace embedded in his chest.

After the Shaman's death Boy and Mina, both wounded and bleeding, stagger out of the bunker into the city night. Sirens and distant alarms wail; the Van Der Koy regime unravels with the matriarch's murder. Boy and Mina walk together through the broken gates toward a ruined arcade that sits like a ghost of their past. They slide into a faded machine and put coins in; the game lights up and the announcer's voice says in its computerized chirp, "Player 2 has entered the game." The siblings share a flash of memory from before the culling--Mina laughing as she taught him an arcade trick--and they stand, together, as the city's neon flickers down the street.

In a final sequence shown after the credits a domestic shot closes the film: Boy and Mina sit in their old childhood apartment, boxes and dust around them, and eat bowls of cereal together at the kitchen table. They chew together in the silence they now share, bruised and alive. The camera pulls back from the small tableau and the screen goes dark.

Short Narrative of the Ending

In the movie "Boy Kills World," produced in 2024, the ending unfolds with a dramatic twist. Boy, driven by vengeance, confronts the Van Der Koy family, particularly Hilda, who is revealed to be his mother. June 27, Hilda's enforcer, is also exposed as Boy's sister. The revelation leads to a pivotal moment where June 27, persuaded by Boy's childhood drawing, turns against Hilda. Ultimately, Hilda is killed by June 27, marking the end of the tyrannical regime. However, the story concludes with Boy facing a new challenge as he squares off against the Shaman.

Expanded Narrative of the Ending

The final scenes of "Boy Kills World" are a culmination of Boy's journey of vengeance and self-discovery. The climax begins with Boy's relentless pursuit of the Van Der Koy family, specifically targeting Hilda, who he believes is responsible for his family's death.

As Boy navigates through Hilda's elaborate traps and confronts her directly, he is met with a stunning revelation: Hilda is his mother. This twist is compounded by the disclosure that June 27, the deadly assassin who has been trying to kill Boy throughout the movie, is actually his sister. This revelation comes as a shock to both Boy and June 27, creating a moment of hesitation and reevaluation.

The turning point occurs when Boy shows June 27 a drawing from his childhood, which serves as proof of their familial bond. This shared memory sparks a moment of persuasion, leading June 27 to question her loyalties. The drawing acts as a powerful reminder of their past life together, creating a rift between June 27 and Hilda.

In a dramatic and violent confrontation, June 27 ultimately kills Hilda by plunging an axe into her face. This act not only avenges Boy's family but also frees both Boy and June 27 from Hilda's tyrannical rule. The scene is intense and chaotic, mirroring the turmoil and conflict that has defined the movie.

Following Hilda's death, Boy and June 27 are faced with another adversary: the Shaman, who has been guiding Boy on his path of vengeance. The Shaman's motivations are revealed to be driven by a desire for revenge, which puts them at odds with Boy and June 27. The final confrontation between the three becomes a flurry of violence, with the Shaman showing no signs of relenting.

Throughout the ending, the movie highlights themes of family, loyalty, and the cyclical nature of violence. Boy's journey transforms from one of pure vengeance to a more complex exploration of his identity and relationships. The revelation about Hilda and June 27 adds depth to the story, underscoring the complexities of family dynamics and the blurred lines between loyalty and betrayal.

The final scenes serve as a stark reminder of the violence and trauma that have shaped the characters, leaving the audience with a sense of both resolution and ongoing conflict. The conclusion sets the stage for potential future explorations of the characters' paths and the consequences of their actions.

The movie Boy Kills World was released in 2023 (not 2024, but is sometimes referenced in association with 2024 due to festival or wide release timelines). Regardless, it is not family friendly.

The film is rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, language, some drug use, and sexual references. Here are details about potentially objectionable or upsetting content for children or sensitive viewers:

• Violence and Gore: There are many extended and graphic scenes of combat using various weapons, leading to death and serious injury. Blood and gore are shown frequently. Themes include a child being forced to kill people, a child witnessing his family's murder, and people being murdered for entertainment.
• Language: The film contains over 50 uses of the F-word and other strong language.
• Drug Use: There is some depiction or reference to drug use.
• Sexual Content: While sexual content is minimal, it includes brief flirting, scenes with characters wearing revealing clothing, and a few sexual references.
• Other Sensitive Themes: The movie features a dystopian setting with disturbing power dynamics and psychological trauma, including children in peril or involved in violence.

Due to these elements, Boy Kills World is unsuitable for children and may be upsetting for sensitive viewers.