Review of Battle Royale (2000) by Kristi M — 01 Mar 2014

Battle Royale might appear to be a typical over the top gorefest type movie from a first glance but to me it's far more than that. A kind of modern version of George Orwell's 1984 but with a different approach, it looks at a world where Japan's adults appear to have lost control of its youth and so pick a school class by a random lottery each year to fight to death in a battle on an uninhabited island. They are given a bag each with unique weapons in each, some good and some bad, and are forced to wear a neck device that will explode if they try to escape or if there is no winner.

What we get is a violent film but full of emotion. The interesting part is to see who will do what - some can't accept what is happening and try to defy it, one couple for example committing suicide for example. A favourite scene of mine is when one girl kills a guy, mainly out of fear, only for him to admit his feelings for her in his last dying moments, the girl unaware of his feelings and now upset due to her actions. Some obviously do play by the book, with everyone in the film unsure who they can trust.

Takeshi Kitano probably plays the best character in the film, playing the lead teacher who we slowly learn more about as the film goes on and see two sides to him. If you've read the book which I recommend, it's interesting to see the difference with Kitano's character as opposed to the book - in the book the teacher seems far more generally evil but Kitano brings a lot more emotion to the character.

It's a film about the dangerous of control and censorship, something that seems to be in the spotlight regularly. It's very similar to the later books and films of the hunger game trilogy although it's writer claims this is accidental.