Juego Sangriento

Battle Royale, or Batoru Rowaiaru as named in Japan, was a pretty cool Japanese action flick. Most of the special effects were pretty awesome looking, but a few could be considered a bit cheesy, such as the over splattering of blood. Believe it or not, the movie actually had it's funny moments as well. The instructional video from the overly perky girl telling the rules of the death game was a pretty funny bit. Usually the humor from Japanese movies can escape me, but I liked the humor here quite a bit, at least until the action and killing started.

The premise of the movie is that, due to escalating violence in schools, a law is passed which allows the military, or some kind of militia, to take one troubled class and turn them all loose on an island with the object of killing each other until one is standing. They have 3 days to complete their objective or they all die.

As the game begins, every 6 hours there is an update on which classmates were killed and how many were left. These updates also alert the students to danger zones, which are just places you do not want to be when the time comes. The students are all issued a survival pack and a random weapon as well. Some weapons are horrible and useless and some would be great to have in a situation of this kind.

The main characters are Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) & Noriko Nakagawa (Aki Maeda) who are close friends and refuse to kill each other. The game is also somewhat rigged with the addition of two "ringers". One of whom plays for fun, another who has another reason. Basically, one good and one evil. The good one is named Shougo Kawada (Taro Yamamoto) and helps the students who he does not find a threat. Also, Chiaki Kuriyama (Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill) puts in an amazing performance. I can see why Quentin Tarantino chose her for his movie based on this part here.

Overall, I really liked this movie - violence, action, humor and all with very few complaints or annoyances. I can recommend this movie with a clear conscience. 8.5/10

Most of the reviewers here speak from their own viewpoints, i.e. non-Japanese westerners, and they praise/knock the movie based on its violence, plot, etc. That's fine. But through their ignorance of the culture this film springs from, they are missing its subtleties.

I've been teaching in a Japanese high school for three years now. Once I saw this movie, I could instantly appreciate its skill and surprising frankness at commenting on some of the sad and strange realities of Japan's modern youth.

Japan is a culture obsessed with youth. Almost everything here is tailored to the under-30 (and much younger, actually) crowd. For example, most westerners watching Japanese TV will be surprised at how childish it seems. The things that seem childish to your average American junior-high student are very appealing for a Japanese high-school student. Girls in their 30s desperately try to be "cute" to attract guys. Adults and children alike read comics by the droves, and sometimes pops up a strange, not-too-well-hidden undercurrent of pedophilia.

This movie takes the heavily cliquish, often childish, and often incomprehensible (to me) social system of young Japanese boys and girls and gives them guns. This is the natural result. Take it from me, the characters and situations are very realistic.

This gets mixed with the growing anxiety among the older generation at the rising rudeness and rebellion of the new generation in a culture that values politeness above all else. From a frustrated and humiliated teacher; to students killing each other over seemingly unimportant squabbles; to the overly-cutesy, peppy training video that perfectly mimics nearly any show on NHK these days -- this film subtly and brilliantly comments on half-a-dozen issues that weigh heavily on the minds of Japanese people today. That's why it was such a big hit in Japan.

Maybe you just have to live here to get it. I give it 5 stars.

I saw on a youtube video that this was one of Quentin Tarantino favourite films and that he regreted not making it. He was right. It is one of the best asian films ever made.

There have been contrasting cries of "greatest film ever made" and "pointless gore fest" made about BR, and neither are accurate in my opinion. What it is, is a commentary about "perceived" (real or otherwise) problems among Japanese teens in the late 90's.

In one review, someone basically likened it to a movie involving young Japanese girls running around in school uniforms acting violent....DUH, thats the whole point. A lot of peoples only knowledge of Japan is Manga and Hentai.

If people bothered to watch the news once in awhile, they may know that the establishment in Japan were VERY worried about young people getting out of control, and BR portrays all this perfectly.

Its NOT ultra violent, although the fact that they are supposed to be teens makes it disturbing. Battle Royale is no worse than Lord of the flies, but for some reason that has been deified as a work of art, and BR is classed as trash. I'd say its more about cultural snobbery than actual appreciation of a truly magnificent film.

Based on a Japanese novel by Koushun Takami, "Battle Royale" is the story of a group of ninth graders who are transported to a small isolated island with a map, food and different arms. They are told to fight each other for three consecutive days until there remains but one student, who will then be named the 'winner'. All students are forced to wear a metal collar with a radar so that their teacher is aware when a rule is being broken.

The film is set in Japan and is in Japanese (and if you do come across a dubbed version, dispose of it immediately because it's only worth it to watch the original). It's hard to classify this film, as despite the extreme violence in it, it isn't action and despite its nightmarish feel, it isn't horror. It's just in between. There are many themes to this story; from to trust to complete selfishness (killing your best friend to save your own life) to suicide to disloyalty, and the list goes on.

The actors in Battle Royale were amazing. It is rare to find young talents like these, for instance, in Hollywood. These actors were by far the best young actors I have seen in all my life (though most of them weren't as young as their characters were). Tatsuya Fujiwara plays the main character, Shuya, a young man who is struck by tragedy when he becomes an orphan. All he has now is his best friend and the girl with whom he is madly in love. Fujiwara did a great job of transmitting the feel of despair that one would probably feel if he/she were to see his best friend die before their eyes, or to have to see classmates killing each other and then to portray that never-ending trust that two lovers share. The other actors all did a generally good job as well.

The first actor I'd like to criticize is Taro Yamamoto, who played the compassionate Shougo Kawada, who helps the protagonist and his girlfriend as the game of Battle Royale goes on. I thought that Yamamoto overplayed the character's casualty and I didn't feel as attached to him watching the movie as I did reading the comic book. The other actor I thought did a terrible job relative to the other actors was Masanobu Ando, who played the haunting character Kazuo Kiriyama, who basically seemed immune to everything. While reading the book, that guy really creeped the sh*t out of me. But in the movie, he just basically did the "undercover" thing and sort of leaped from place to place and tortured and killed people and that was it. You didn't feel anything, and in my opinion, that character was one of the most important so it was pretty disappointing. But putting those two aside, the acting WAS splendid, just as the directing of (sci-fi/Japanese gangster movie director) Kinji Fukasaku was.

I thought that the story was very haunting and compelling, and that you should read the novel or the comic book before watching the movie because just the use of your imagination and attachment to the characters while reading the books is so much more real. I really enjoyed the movie too, though, and would recommend it to anyone who has the stomach for constant shootings, hangings, blowing-up, abandoned corpses and a lot of blood squirting everywhere.

And so if it fits the shoe, rent it out. You probably won't regret it.