BufferedImage is a(n) Image, so the implicit cast that you're doing in the second line is able to be compiled directly. If you knew an Image was really a BufferedImage, you would have to cast it explicitly like so:
Image image = ImageIO.read(new File(file));
BufferedImage buffered = (BufferedImage) image;
Because BufferedImage extends Image, it can fit in an Image container. However, any Image can fit there, including ones that are not a BufferedImage, and as such you may get a ClassCastException at runtime if the type does not match, because a BufferedImage cannot hold any other type unless it extends BufferedImage.
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