Battle Royale

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.

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.

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.

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.

** 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.