Battle Royale

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.

** 1/2 out of ****

Battle Royale presents one of the most engrossing and utterly terrifying premises I've ever heard. Take a large class of teenage Japanese students, place them on an island, and force them to kill each other for three straight days until only one student is left standing. Simultaneously, I also realized such a premise would indeed result in an outlandish film that probably couldn't excel as anything other than a relentless thriller or over-the-top satire. Battle Royale aims for both and hits its marks fairly well, for the most part.

To elaborate a bit further on the plot, there are about a total of forty Japanese students on this island. Each has an explosive collar around his or her neck, their incentive to stay in a certain vicinity. They have also been randomly given duffel bags packed with survival items. Some have guns, some have knives, others get binoculars and pot pans, etc. The movie's main focus is on Shuya and Noriko (boy and girl), two close schoolmates who firmly decide not to kill anyone, but must find a way off the island.

The reasons for why the students are forced to participate are a bit murky. Apparently, this is part of a new bill that was passed by the Japanese government, the reasons being the decay of the school systems and the rising juvenile delinquency. The question you have to ask yourself before you watch the film is whether or not you believe circumstances could get so out of hand as to lawfully force teens to kill one another.

Personally, I view it as an over-the-top, but intriguing premise. There are lots of movies that defy "reality," but if the film paints its portrait compellingly, I see no reason why I shouldn't go along for the ride. Primarily, it appears Battle Royale wants to work as a thriller, which it does. The pacing is akin to a roller-coaster, packed with non-stop bursts of bloody violence with well-staged shootouts and fight scenes. While the film's momentum flags here and there, the suspense does build to a crescendo; this is one movie where we truly wonder how it's going to end.

And because it works as a thriller, I give it a moderate recommendation. But it works as little else. Even for this premise, the plot is a bit contrived, with each character having a soap opera-ish background that conveniently lays the groundwork for the violence to reign supreme. Aside from the leads (especially Taro Yamamoto as an older and enigmatic "competitor"), virtually everyone else is a nobody, either clichéd or stereotypical in presentation.

The film's attempts at dark humor are what I found most irksome. As we witness our protagonists struggling for survival, the filmmakers then cut to headmaster Kitano (playing a jaded and psychotic schoolteacher), whose nonchalant behavior will either result in chuckles or baffling expressions. Count me as part of the latter. I enjoy gallows humor, but it doesn't feel appropriate here, no matter how ridiculous the situation may be, and most importantly because the rest of the film is taken very damn seriously.

Equal parts disturbing and viscerally thrilling, Battle Royale doesn't offer anything in the way of good, clean fun. But exploitation buffs and action fans (with stronger constitutions) will get a kick out of it. The film's growing cult status is unsurprising, and in its own way, actually fairly well deserved.

This film is film that I believed had to be made, and it was only a matter of time before it was. Yet it was a film that the US mainstream could never have conceived making.

Firstly to get it out of the way I will say that I loved this movie, although at no point did I feel comfortable while watching it. It had the power and emotional content, that while not necessarily apparent in the dialogue was visible on screen at all times.

I am truly glad that this film has come out of mainstream Japanese cinema. It would have only been made in the US by independent film-makers who would have basked in the glory of its controversy and felt oh-so-smug that they had created it, while shoving a moral in your face. While I actually have no problem with US Indie film I do feel that a Western background would have comprised on visceral content, and upped the content of cheap moral points.

For those who say the violence was "cartoon-style" and laughable must have been watching a different film. Whilst this film is heavy in black humour I can clearly say that the deaths are shocking in the extreme, and there is no relenting from the beginning to the end. Only occasionally does the camera pan away from the final deed. The only deaths that have a dark humour content to them, are those involving Kitano (Beat Takeshi) and the "lone" vigilante (those who have seen the film will know what I am talking about). Other sections, such as the "Training Video" are equally comedic, and absurd. Yet other deaths are shocking in the extreme, and show how the slightest suspicion can have disastrous consequences for groups that only have trust to keep them together, a truly shocking scene in the Lighthouse reinforces this.

The fact that this film employs Children as the main protagonists of the story is the key to the whole impact of the film. We have all seen films like The Running Man where adults fight adults for survival and it seems that much less shocking, albeit that film was handled in a completely different manner. Children have the innocence that makes the brutality of this film that much more shocking, adults in the same situation would have had the reaction from audiences of cheering at the screen as the hero dispatches yet another victim. This could never and would never have been the case with this film.

To another commentator who felt that this film sticks with you less than Scream, I simply fail to find this to be anywhere close to the truth. The deaths in Scream although bloody are nothing but pastiche of those films that Scream is mimicking, ultimately throwaway deaths that up in brutality in order to out-do the last one that have one or two psychotic perpetrators, who eventually get their comeuppance. In this film their are no victims and besides one exception there are no villains amongst the children. They simply HAVE to play the game or die.

Well I encourage all those who feel they can stomach it to go and see this film or find it available somewhere (as I believe it has been banned in the US). It is not truly a film denouncing the evils of Reality TV or showing us the future of that trend of Broadcasting, that is merely a plot device to place the children in this situation. The nature of the film lies in its deconstruction of Friendships, Trust and our views on Innocence. Go and see it not as a spectator of this BR spectacle but as one of the participants and remember what was important to you when you were at school, and whether any of those rivalries, hatreds and friendships would have been enough for you to decide who deserves to die and who deserves to live.

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

This movie was recommended to me some time ago by a friend. So I decided to check out what it was all about and found out it's based on a Book. I always like to read/see the source material first so I bought the book over amazon and I have to say I loved it. It was a good story, with great characters and great writing that gave a lot of psychological insight on the characters.

Based on how popular and loved this movie is, I was expecting it to be a great adaptation but after watching it, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with it all. They take the concept, some characters and some major events from the book but there are A LOT of changes and, IMO, most of them didn't do the story any favor. It all feels a bit underdeveloped and the acting wasn't very strong either. There are also several changes in the motivation of some characters and the whole concept of battle royale shifts from an oppressive government to some sort of "adult vs kids" thing which, despite the fact that I'm aware of the problems japan has with the youth, doesen't make a whole lot of sense-

Anyway, not a bad movie. But I'd recommend you read the book which in my opinion is far superior