Battle Royale: good, bad, or somewhere in between

[Master Shake]

I recently got a bootleg copy of Battle Royale. I thought it was a really good film that raised some interesting questions, like what is more impotent survival or loyalty to ones friends. However I only know one other person who saw it and they really didn’t care for it, so I’m just curious about how many of you have seen it and what did you think of it?

[kthulhu]

It seems to be more of a commentary on Japanese society. It has been suggested that Japan's economic boom in the 1980s, and the business culture tied into it, led to a sort of breakdown of Japanese family structure - the father, traditional figurehead of the family in Japan, works all the time (to the point of work, sleep, wake up and go back to work), with no real time left for anything else, the mother gets bored and becomes detached from the marriage and children, and the kids, if they're not there as spoiled accessories, are ignored. Naturally, this isn't the case with all Japanese families, but it's not an uncommon thing.

Potentially, this style of family life has been said to contribute to something of a breakdown in the Japanese youth population today, especially in the area of youth rebellion and violence. Many people are blaming numerous different causes, much like what happened after Columbine here in the US - numerous causes, except for the parents and the way they failed their children.

The theme of "Battle Royale" can be said to be a condemnation of Japanese society - that people would rather go so far as to let their children kill each other in a government mandated slaughterfest, instead of stepping up to the plate and connecting, taking responsibility for the raising of their children. The fact that there seemed to be no protest from any parents, or outside commentary, in the movie can be seen as further evidence of this.

Just what I got from the movie.

[Xanthrax]

A warning before I start: I'm bound to go into spoilers at some point.

----

I've had the Special Edition of Battle Royale on DVD since it was released over here a month or so ago.

I love the film, and the vast majority of my friends do as well. My sister's becoming obsessed with it, though she's found it incredibly difficult to interest any of her friends in it.

Quite frankly, I don't much care for the themes of loyalty and crap like that in it: so far as I can see they're mainly used as a moral excuse to set up the movie in the first place. Just looking it as an action / black comedy film is more than enough.

First off, the action is classy and for the (most part) natural. Take, for instance, when Kiriyama starts off with a fan, then quickly proceeds to eliminate the entirety of Numai's fairly heavily armed gang. Reading it, it sounds pretty farfetched, and/or that Kiriyama is super human, but when you watch it, it makes sense. There's bad acting here and there, but it's mainly believable (especially remarkable seeing as the vast majority of the cast was made up of inexperienced teenagers), bar the melodrama (more on that later).

The black comedy in the movie is just my kind of thing. I couldn't stop laughing during the scene where they're getting told the rules of Battle Royale through the video tape, even though two of the kids are brutally murdered during it. Hell, a fair number of the deaths are hilarious. The cookie stuff was beautiful.

And the characters, the interaction and depth is amazing. It's hard to realise just how important the pre-BR scenes are until after the first viewing. With 40 class members, it's hard to draw all of it out in one go. I didn't even notice how important Sugimura is to the movie as a whole until thinking about it for a while after watching it for the first time, and that's major in comparison to most of the links that are made.

Kiriyama is quite possibly the coolest guy in the history of ever, even though he has dodgy hair, wears slippers and never talks. He gets practically all of the best moments in the film. His utterly laid back attitude from the start got my respect, but the way he dealt with Numai's gang was fantastic. As sick as it may be to admit, it was just so brilliant to see him shoot Yukiko and Kusaka on the hilltop, then hold the megaphone to her (I wouldn't know which of the two) mouth as he killed her so that everyone could hear her die. Genius. Killing Oda with the samurai sword ought to go without saying. Then damn, his grin when Nanahara shoots him (with his newly acquired bullet-proof vest on) is beyond classy, even more so when he halts Mitsuko's rampage later on. Talking of that, I cheered the first time I saw Kiriyama shoot that bitch up. Even near the end, he makes being blind look cool. And why did he decide to do any of this in the first place? For fun. What a guy.

Mimura and Sugimura are great. Alongside Kawada, they're the only ones that really deserve to have survived the game. Mimura's great as a natural leader / hacker / terrorist / martyr, and Sugimura's just as good for seeing him doing exactly what he wants before death, not even considering surviving the game (and it makes Kotohiki's lament all the more entertaining).

Kawada was a little unfortunate, as he got a large dose of melodrama to go along with the otherwise cool action.

The lighthouse scene was fantastic.

Even though I didn't like Mitsuko at all, she's deserving of the movie, and I can see why most people seem to like her.


Briefly for the bad points:

The ending sucked. It should have ended as soon as they announced Kawada as the winner. Just about everything after that (excepting the painting and Kitano's surreal death) saw it go further and further downhill.

The melodramatic elements bordered on painful. Kitano's 'life is a game' speech made no sense whatsoever, anything relating to Nanahara protecting Noriko was awful, and 'the mystery of Keiko's smile' is as bad as it sounds and brings down Kawada overall. It's obviously necessary to explain his character and the backstory in itself is fine, but the execution was not. At least the stuff with Nanahara and Kuninobu was funny.

Nanahara and Noriko shouldn't have been the survivors. They weren't much more than pacifists for most of the time and Noriko didn't do much other than get shot, have guns pointed at her, fall over and pretend to understand Keiko. Had Kawada actually killed them at the end, things would have been fine.

But overall, it's absolutely fantastic. I could have went into a lot more detail but heh, I figure that it isn't needed.

[Xanthrax]

After kthulhu's post, I'd best clarify that my brush off of themes was to the loyalty and survival ideas, which get mixed up too much in the melodrama, or in the black comedy. I have no beef with historical motives.

[_faerie_]

Good movie. then again, I like watching scary movies so I was bound to say I liked it...I unno...it was cool. 8)

[El Banana]

I loved it, but my roomate acts like it had killed his mother.
And he hasn't even seen it yet.

[Mroni]

Pretty cheesy film actually and quite funny the way the people died. I think some people are reading too much into this film its just goofiness I love it. Come on any scene where the girl goes Baka baka baka we could have made it and then croakcs that's classic.


Mr Oni

And those were some good cookies.

[kthulhu]

So how many hands in your pants did it get from you, Mroni? None, one, or both?

[HungryCrackPot]

What's the difference between a rock and a dead baby?
You can't fuck a rock.

[Mroni]

So how many hands in your pants did it get from you, Mroni? None, one, or both?

Because the main chick was such a hotty it gets power wack rating of x 10.


Mr Oni