Battle Royale is a film based on the novel with the same name written by Koshun Takumi and was distributed by Toei and was directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Because of its content, it aroused controversy in Japan. The film is about a law passed that forces students to kill each other until one of them survives.
The film opens with this:
"At the dawn of the millennium, the nation collapsed. At fifteen percent unemployment, ten million were out of work. 800,000 students boycotted school. The adults lost confidence and, fearing the youth, eventually passed the Millennium Educational Reform Act, AKA the BR Act...."
Thinking that they are just going to a regular school trip, Shuya Nanahara and his classmates were gassed and kidnapped by the government and were thrown in an uninhabited island and was lectured about the said act.
Two of their classmates were killed by their former teacher, Kitano while he is lecturing and one of those was his best friend, Nobu. After being lectured about the said act, they got their provisions and their weapons (It depends on your luck, you might get an axe or even as crappy as a binoculars) and set of to venture the island for them to survive. If there is no declared winner after three days, the collars that were attached to the students will self detonate.
After Nobu’s dead, he protects Noriko Nakagawa in his place from those people who are trying to kill them in this “game.” Some of the students who didn’t played the game often stayed in groups while others remained alone and played the game. One of those is Mitsuko who uses her wits to win this game and the mysterious transfer student, Kiriyama who volunteered to join the said program just for fun.
As they try to survive, they met a previous winner of the Battle Royale, Kawada whose purpose for his return in the island to find the reason of her girlfriend’s last message for him when she died. Can Shuya and Noriko survive in this wretched island? Can they figure a way of getting out of it without killing each other? That is for you to find out.
On to the review, I heard about this film a few years back because of its theme and it is said to be the basis on some elements in Kamen Rider Ryuki. No wonder, because both materials where related to Toei! Heck, Ryuki has a character that is similar to Kiriyama in the form of Asakura/Ouja!
Anyways, about the film, it was set on an alternate timeline based on the quick Wikipedia check that I have on the series. While watching the film, I have this feeling as if this material kinda reminisced the second half of the book, The Lord of the Flies. In which, we have a bunch of kids trying to survive in an island, and some of them, started to act barbaric and in some point, killed Piggy, one of the characters and the voice of reason in the book.
Unlike The Lord of the Flies, they were forced to stay in an island to kill each other, for the teens to grow into adults. In my opinion, I find barbaric and stupid, seriously, what’s with that?!
The main theme about this film is survival. Will you get into the game for you to survive or give up into life and die on the third day? Some of the students get into the game while some; think of ways to survive in the island without killing anyone. This is the issue of moral decay and the death of innocence comes in.
Here’s the situation in the island. You only have three days in the island or else you will day via the detonation of the collar or be killed by someone. What will you do? Kill before you get killed? Or hide and try to protect yourself? Will you trust your best friend or your companion? These questions might bother the person while he or she is on the BR Program, and might cause mental breakdown for the sane human being who hasn’t faced this kind of situation.
This is where the issue of trust comes in. Will you trust someone for you to survive? Or will you backstab your friend for you to survive? These questions were answered in Kawada’s flashback scene in which in the last few seconds before their collar explodes, he killed her girlfriend, Keiko for him to survive.
Also, this is were the human psychology comes in. Events in the past might trigger a certain personality when he or she is placed in a hostile environment. While watching Mitsuko’s character, I know that there is something in her past that makes her act that way, and I was right. In her final moments, she tells that she will not lose in this game, giving me an impression that there is a person who wants her to succeed but she keeps on failing.
Speaking of human psychology, we have a psycho in the form of Kiriyama. He volunteered in the Battle Royale just for fun. With this sense, we saw him kill various students, get their weapons and kill more students, making him one of the characters you must kill first for you to survive. And like Kamen Rider Ryuki’s Asakura, he never won in the Battle Royale.
On to Shuya, he, along with Noriko I haven’t seen much change before and after the program. The only change I saw is that Shuya decides to move forward and use his experience to possibly, survive in the world he is in right now considering that they are labeled fugitives.
About the film, the film was fantastic. The physics of the blood splatter was brilliant but because of the rating it has, it never went to the extreme like cult classic, Friday the 13th or those Hollywood splatter films that never made much sense to me after enjoying much of the gore. The music adds up to the tension being built up in the film that I would love to download or if there is a way, to buy the soundtrack of the film.
The best thing about this film is the plot twist in various scenes. This is the issue of trust comes running around the entire film. Whom will you trust in this mad island? Will she betray you at the end? Those issues come running around this entire film.
Overall, Battle Royale is one of the best suspense-horror films that I watched in recent years. It was so good that you might think a sequel or sequels might ruin the epic feeling this film gave me. That is when I heard that there is a BR II, I knew I will not watch it because, like most horror sequels that I know, it would never lived up to the feel that the original gave to the viewers.
Since it was first a novel, if I will see this book being bargained somewhere, someone is willing to sell it, or a copy of this book is available in digital format, I might as well read it.