William Golding's Lord Of The Flies has always been a popular set text in schools because it makes young readers wonder what they would do in the same situation. Fukasaku plays the movie for bloody thrills while keeping the sinister message in the background. Kitano Takeshi Kitano keeps an eye on the tracking screens and provides statistics as the days pass. They come around on an island where they are informed them that they have been placed in the Battle Royale — a competition where they must kill each other until only one is left alive. Note: there is a 114-minute theatrical cut and a 122-minute, unrated cut.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world we're confronted with girls in school uniform that massacre each other. To deal with this the state has instituted the Battle Royale Act. The absence of present, engaged fathers, was -- and remains -- a catastrophe in many places around the world, including this country. On top of that, the over the top nature of it annoyed her too. It's impossible to guess which of these neatly-uniformed youngsters is secretly a serial killer, a self-sacrificing hero, a born victim or simply another body count statistic. When the students regain consciousness, they are in a strange classroom and are wearing metal collars locked around their necks. Fast forward to the next class teenagers this time and about 110 minutes of death.
Only Shuya, his friend Noriko Aki Maeda and the mysterious Kawada Taro Yamamoto stick together and want to survive as a team. Battle Royale was the final film by the Japanese exploitation master Kinji Fukasaku, who was 70 at the time, and he clearly put everything he had into it. Well, it is something we need here in America! The violence in the movie is over-the-top and unrealistic, but still very intense. How does the movie use it, and what is the effect? A mother accepts money to allow a man to sexually abuse her daughter. The students are each given a kit containing food and water, a map and a compass, a randomly assigned weapon, and sent out to the island.
But the Fukasakus wrap up with a gratuitous, tacked-on change-of-pace that attempts to deliver a message of empowerment and solidarity. Set in Modern Day Japan, the act presents itself every year to a group of students who are set to have the task of killing each other, until the last person survives. But it's not as if every adolescent has become a killing machine. You see Japan is going through some difficult times with its school system, so I guess that the government wants to reduce the violent actions in schools by randomly choosing schools and then classes in those schools and putting them on a remote island to kill each other. This is a horror-thriller- action movie worthy of watching! The performances are okay, no one really shines In this picture.
As an avid lover of Japanese game shows, especially batsu games, and Asian horror, I thoroughly enjoyed this film! Fukasaku capitalizes on the fear of children in contemporary Japanese society and savages it. By the time you've worked out who the kids are, most of them have gone, in a succession of surprising, disturbing, touching, horribly funny or deeply upsetting ways. The law only encourages one to become a cold-hearted killer. Unlike my previous review of Hunger games; which I felt was an okay experience, but just was a bit confusing and didn't give a credible reason for its actions. Therefore we get a lot of blood, which is by the way computer generated and not as authentic as the good, old film blood.
His is a fan's perspective first, but with a critic's eye to theme and underscore, to influence and pastiche. The government's solution: Banish one school class per year to a deserted island and force them to kill each other. Essentially it is survival, punishment, sweet revenge, and violence. The plot is very good, too, even if there's nothing extraordinarily new happening up until the end. It was a healthy mix of punishment, survival, blood-letting, and revenge. Yet thousands of students are competing…for slot one.
The students ask to se their current teacher. Adults in this film are portrayed as petty and sadistic such as Kitano , craven and selfish as in Shuya's father who kills himself in a flashback , or simply absent. A teacher smacks and kills his teen students. Battle Royale 2000 succeeds on several thematic and literal fronts. But really shocking are the people butchering each other. How do the messages of each movie compare? His deep analysis of contemporary American culture is always illuminating and insightful. Clearly one highlight is the tutorial video which explains the rules.
To his credit, Fukasaku keeps the social commentary light and the film funny --surprising, given its subject matter. This tone may be the major distraction for some viewers. Moreover, the classic pieces of the soundtrack, which support the action by adding a lot of contrast, are really enthralling. Noriko has nobody to trust except for her close classmate, Shuyu Nanahara, in which both of them fight side by side to overcome impending danger. If they try to cheat, their collars will explode. Lord of the Flies and Saw wrapped up into one! Adults don't have an exemplary function anymore and they also lost children's respect. The movie was going more for the shock value I think.