Battle Royale

So far, before the night is over, I will have only seen this film once. I saw it shortly after the turn of the millennium in my brothers old apartment in Athens. At the time I was very big into gore driven entertainment in films and I had heard that this one was pretty messy, and it seemed to have a huge following in the underground circuit of Asian cinema on the Internet and from Nathan. I rented it from Vision video and watched it while my brother was out doing his paper route, at least I think that's the job he had at the time but, I could be mistaken. This film had a large impact on me emotionally and possibly because, I was still in high school and I wasn't prepared for such drama to pour out of a such a gore drenched film. I wasn't prepared for such a masterpiece to be laid out in front of me for my viewing pleasure. I didn't find myself intrigued with the amount of blood flow, I was captivated by the great amount of emotion I felt towards the characters in this film no matter how short their role or how little the audience was intended to see of a certain character. I hardly ever read manga but, I'd be willing to read these if I had an easier access to them. I only dare guess how much more story is covered or how much farther the drama is dragged out in the manga the film is based off of. And I'd only start reading manga due to a select few films that I've seen based on several films I'd seen that were originally manga and hopefully get around to reading the original book.

At the dawn of the new millennium, Japan is in a a state of near-collapse. Unemployment is at an all-time high, and violence among the nation's youth is spiraling out of control. With schoolchildren boycotting their classes and physically abusing their teachers, a beleaguered and near-defeated government decides to introduce a radical new measure: the Battle Royale Act Overseen by former teacher Kitano (Beat Takeshii Kitano) and requiring that a randomly chosen school class is taken to a deserted island and forced to fight each other to the death, the Act dictates that only one pupil is allowed to survive the punishment. He or she will return, not as the victor, but as the ultimate proof of the lengths to which the government is prepared to go to curb the tide of juvenile disobedience. Forty-two enter only one will leave and there's no telling what will happen to the other before victory is achieved by that one.

The film is full of dark humor, especially Kitano's character. The simplicity in which he executes his one liners in the film is just genius probably without him even knowing he had just done something incredible. Kitano's character is both ruthless and lovable all at the same intervals and some will hate that more about his character and some will ponder the thought, "He's not that bad of a guy is he?" As for the students morally one would watch this film and admit that not every single student deserves this horrible punishment. The ones that didn't deserve it are quickly knocked off the playing field by either committing suicide or being caught up in the cross fire of someones wrath. Nonetheless, it's a very powerful gripping story. It hurts me to watch these young boys and girls have everything they ever had hopes or memories with one another torn asunder by their friends. Hopes of growing old, living, going to a good school, love, just thrown away in the worst possible way. Whom ever comes out on top of the game will never live with themselves the same way again obviously so why even continue? What could possibly, if at all, keep the spirit of a kid who has just murdered every friend they could have ever made growing up live after that?

trailer