The new adaptation of the novel by the same name by Louis Pergaud. The original movie version was a resounding success in 1962.

Picture gallery

War rages between school kids from the two neighboring villages of Longeverne et Velrans in the French countryside during the 1960s, a never-ending power struggle minutely prepared during recess. Prisoners return without pants and their buttons torn off, a tactic that means the victims are both humiliated by their adversaries and scolded by their parents. The war is limited not only to the pupils of the schools, their respective teachers also have a hard time meeting without getting into nasty arguments. The war is far from over when the head of the small army of Longeverne has to leave his village and name a successor.

New movie adaptation of the eponymous bestseller, which taught girls to use other things than sewing needles in a fight and the public in general what kind of spice children's vocabulary includes. Not as heavy on the corporal punishment suffered by children as the 1st adaptation of the novel by Louis Pergaud by Yves Robert, Yann Samuell doesn't show children fighting bare-bottomed with the same ease as was possible 50 years ago. Made with more prudishness and certainly less realism, this version doesn't trump the original.