Friday 29 July 2016

Classic Movie Review: Battle Royale (2000)

Way before The Hunger Games came along, this highly controversial Japanese movie had teenagers killing each other in much more brutal and graphic ways. While it is commonly believed that this movie was banned in the West for it's depiction of teen on teen violence, that's just not the case and it is a cult classic that lots of people enjoy, including everyone's favourite director Quentin Tarantino, who used actress Chiaki Kuriyama in his Kill Bill movies.

In the future, the unemployment rates have soared to new highs and violent crime is rampant on the streets. In order to lower the population, the government has started the Battle Royale Act, in which once a year, a class of students is sent to a remote location where they must fight one another to the death and only one can survive. This year it is given to the class of Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujihara). It is administered by their old teacher Sensei Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano). Very soon, groups are formed around who is friends with who at school and old grudges are brought up. Meanwhile, transfer student Shôgo Kawada (Tarô Yamamoto) knows a way out of the game and needs help achieving this.

This differs from what we're used to in many ways (not just that it's a Japanese movie). First off, we're not given an awful lot of backstory to the world that the characters are from. We're told how it is and we have to deal with it. That's a good thing because they allow us to focus more on the characters. The backgrounds of the main characters are fleshed out and we're told people have crushes on and who's being bullied by the other kids. Now, I know this isn't a high school movie so what's the point of knowing all this information. Well, we're a lot more connected to the characters, so there is an actual emotional response when someone is killed and you end up rooting for some kids to survive. We're also not given background information on those couple of kids who are actually enjoy the murdering, so seeing them on screen actually fills you with fear of what they're going to do.

And what that is is probably something horrific. Sure, you could shoot your best friend with a gun, but why do that when you could maim them with a samurai sword. The violence in the movie isn't so bad as it seems. The movie was shot on a relatively small budget and they get around things quite nicely, by not showing all the deaths on screen, but rather when people are killed we hear it through the loudspeaker, from Takeshi, or a countdown on the screen. I should mention that although we don't see Takeshi Kitano a lot in this movie, he is definitely one of the best parts of it. He is known more as a comedian and there are parts of this movie where he is quite funny despite the circumstances. It doesn't really add humour to the film, but rather gives it an unsettling tone, especially when he's on screen.


What makes this a classic is it's very straightforward approach. There's no getting bogged down in the political world that exists, it just focuses on what's important. Killing each other and escaping a death island. If violent movies aren't for you, I wouldn't recommend it, but if you're after something new and original, definitely check out Battle Royale.

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