"When Mario Vargas Llosa's novel was published 22 years ago, copies of his book were burned symbolically at the Peruvian military school in Lima and even now it was by no means easy to film this story of moral corruption among cadets.... Making the film became possible because of the end of military rule in Peru.... Beginning with the hazing of a new class of cadets, the film follows their development over the next three years.... Exam papers are stolen and a cadet is killed.... The values the army tries to instill in its future officer class are undermined constantly, and the system itself is indicted" (Variety). "Lombardi (whose fourth feature (this) is), has a well developed sense of rhythm and composition (with a particularly fine feeling for alternating static and traveling shots), and tells the story without vicarious violence, constantly pointing up the sense of entrapment and ambiguity which besets his young 'heroes'" (John Gillett, London Film Festival '85).