Review of Battle Royale (2000) by Tyler R — 25 Jun 2013

With all the revision I've doing to my older reviews to remove any profanity if included which itself been taking up some time. Now that problem could be easily fix, what's not as easy to fix is Amazon not delivering my DVD orders and therefore I can't review what I want. Which meant I did things the old fashion way and looked for the movie myself, though it took a while, I found myself a masterpiece in my eye.

Battle Royale is about a selected class of 40 high school students being force to participate in the Battle Royale Act. A program by the government that forces children to kill each other until only one is victorious in less than three days. The story is of Battle Roayle was surprisingly very poetic and very violent. Every student is unique, every death has meaning behind it, every moment of this program is intense, and it's all thanks to great writing. Some would call this the more violent version of the fantastic The Hunger Games movie, but it's also a superior film at that too. One flaw with The Hunger Games was the love story aspect came out unbelievable and force upon. In Battle Royale on the other hand, the love story is actually much more interesting as we learn about our main characters background through dialogue and flashbacks giving us some history for our main couple and simply putting it in a third of the way into the movie. The story aspect of the movie is well done giving the important characters some good, though not all, and deep development so we understand what's important for these characters motivation for their action. What about the violence, it's not pointless in my opinion. There are actually villains in the movie that actually only kills just for the fun of it and makes them good villains since they have no good intention and shows no remorse for their murders. The majority of the students on the other hands don't want to kill each other they show compassion in peace and fell remorse for what they have to do. Some of the students are even peaceful who were killed and confused because they don't exactly know how handle the situation there in. The violence actually convey the impact of the movie even more as brings up many interesting questions into your head about life, trust, friendship, love, and what it means to be an adult. The story of Battle Royale is violently poetic with deep meaning behind.

The cast is great and varied in characters. While only two stars actually share a majority of screen time together, everyone in the cast has their own moment to shine. Whether it's playing psychopathic killer who enjoys taking the lives of others, characters who prefer to commit suicide over killing other students, and being a vulnerable guy trying to keep his promises to protect a girl and make it in the real world. The cast have their moment to shine and are memorable. Now my personal favorite among the cast is the legendary Takeshi Kitano who plays a character names, Kitano so it shouldn't be to hard to spot him. Even though there wasn't much of him in the movie, his presence is enjoyable and delivers on what Kitano is well known for. One of my favorite moments in the moment comes from Kitano in the final scene he's in as not only is it important to one of the character, but also deliver a great comic relief moment in the same scene. As for the violence once again, it's definitely not for everybody. It has a high body count and a lot of blood for young adults. Watching high school students getting killed won't exactly be easy sit through for some. If you're able to stomach the violence as there no doubt plenty of it here, you'll discover a well told story with deep meaning. I'm all for violence, but in this case it'll definitely receive mix reaction which is the best way to put it. The only thing left to complement is the masterful direction which delivers on drama, suspense, remorse, sadness, happiness, and the all emotion you'll usually go through when you're experiencing a movie.

Battle Royale is a very violent poetic movie with a high body count of high school students which helps sends it messages across to audience. Now be warned, not everyone will be able to find young adults killing each other to be entertainment if you only focus on the violence. Battle Royale is no doubt one of the most violent masterpiece I've seen in a long time and it's worth watching no matter what your view on the violence is as long you see the poetic meaning behind it.

P.S. I left of names of characters and cast to prevent giving away who survives in the movie thus making it not as impactful if I did.