Student Sushi (Battle Royale (DVD))

Member Name: plipplop

Product:	Battle Royale (DVD)
Date:	22/01/09 (247 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bizarre, fast-moving and strangely thought-provoking

Disadvantages: Subtitles take away some of the impact, not immediately likeable

In the not so distant future, Japanese society is crumbling as social disorder increases. With record unemployment and ever-decreasing prospects for the country's youth, students have begun to boycott schools, resulting in a controversial bill being passed by government. Selected at random, a group of children at school leaving age are transported to a remote island, where they must play a simple game. Within three days, they must kill each other, until only one is left standing. Tracked via an immovable bracelet around their necks, the children are left to fend for themselves, equipped only with a small amount of food and water and a surprise gift. Nothing tests a young friendship like a shiny new knife....

A visionary masterpiece or a misguided, ill-conceived mess? Opinion over Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 epic Battle Royale is often divided. Watching Battle Royale is rather like sleeping through a rather bizarre dream as the violent narrative rapidly takes us through the bloody demise of forty young students. Based on Koushun Takami's novel of the same name, it can be hard to understand exactly what the creators had in mind, but scratch the surface just a little and something rather more profound is there to be found.

Unmistakably Japanese in tone and structure, no Western director would ever make a film like this. The brief set up is almost entirely implausible and hastily explained in such a way that one blink and you could miss it. The audience is expected to believe that the government would decide that the answer to its social problems is to ship students off to an island to murder each other, but this is partly the film's early appeal. This is a f****d up film set in a f****d up world and once you get your head around this then you can settle yourself in for some f****d up mayhem. It's never slow. Everything happens in Battle Royale at breakneck speed. Within minutes of the film starting, the kids have been gassed and abducted. Minutes later, two of them are dead. Minutes later again, the rest are fighting for their lives and so it goes on. It's tiring stuff. As much as the students barely have time to catch their breaths, the audience must cope with something new - be it weapon, student or murder.

Throughout, the film is a combination of bizarre, dark humour, human tragedy and conflict of every kind. It's hard to imagine but the film is often very humorous, never more so than during the students' introductory video featuring a pretty, shrill, young girl recounting hilarious bits of advice accompanied by rapid music and dazzling lights. The students' disillusioned teacher, watching over them before and during the events on the island, is the strangest of them all. Hated by everyone, he works his way through a random selection of one-liners, and provides a dour, sick commentary as the students gradually reduce in number.

In the hands of an American director, Battle Royale would look very different. The students would be older and full of stereotypes and the characterisation would revolve around a small handful of lead characters, with loads of supporting cast members thrown into the mix to help maintain the body count. The beauty of Battle Royale is that the students all have their part to play and as the story plays out, they must deal with anxieties, emotions and conflicts that had been boiling away before they were given the opportunity to release their tensions with knives and bullets. At times, it's tragic stuff, as the inexperienced students must grapple with friendships, loyalties and betrayals, each of them demonstrating just what he is/not prepared to do to survive. Not surprisingly, as teenagers, it's their unspent affections that cause the most problems, the bloody violence seemingly representing the natural trials and struggles of adolescence. It could have become very dull, but the rapid action scenes intersperse well with subtler scenes of reflection, combined with occasional flashbacks to a life before the island that now seems so distant. It's interesting, too, to see how each of the students copes with the ordeal and two outsiders are thrown into the mix to further complicate the proceedings. Every human characteristic seems to manifest itself at one point or another, from greed to loneliness, honesty to courage and, inevitably, the balance between good and evil. There are no stand out performances here; each of the actors is convincing and unusual, and brings something different to the tale.

It would be naïve to suggest that Royale is not a violent film - it is. There is a great deal of bloodshed as the students dispatch each other with every type of weapon imaginable. The fight scenes are purposefully clumsy, with a distinct absence of choreography or effects, supporting the notion that this is all unlike anything the students have ever had to do before. Not surprisingly, some students are killed by accident. Some opt to take their own lives, rather than be hunted down like animals. Some of them realise they quite enjoy it. And it's all played out to a curious, almost comical soundtrack that features rousing pieces of classical music at the most inappropriately violent moments.

Filmed in Japanese, the translation to English (via subtitles) takes a little of the film's edge away. Technical issues don't help - many of the subtitles briefly seem indecipherable as the decision to use white text means that words are lost against the occasional white background on the screen. Some of the dialogue seems staged and it's hard to tell whether this is something that has been lost in translation or whether the original scriptwriter intended it that way. The similarity of many of the characters' voices also forces a dependency on the subtitles if the audience is to work out who's who, particularly early on in the film when there are a lot of children running around the island, all wearing identical uniforms. A particularly cruel touch comes in the form of a body count, displayed on the screen as each girl or boy is slaughtered and gives a running total of how many there are left to go.

The question around what Battle Royale is actually all about is the most likely outcome from viewing this film. Clearly, there's something here about the struggles of adolescents, more viscerally demonstrated with blood and knives but still consistently in keeping with the way in which adolescence can be so uncomfortable. More striking for me, however, is the perception of the relationship between adults and young people and you can't help thinking that Royale is something of a warning to the world that it really needs to sort this out. Distrust and animosity are almost entirely consistent demonstrations of the relationship between this film's students and the adult world (it's the adults who decided that the Battle Royale would be a good thing) and I took the whole thing to be a warning that the different generations must really get back in touch if the world is to get back on its feet again. It's probably best visualised through Japanese culture, which, by definition seems to revolve around childish pleasures right the way through adulthood.

But whatever your take on it all is, the fact remains that it stimulates thinking of some sort, and that's got to be a good thing. It's a very well made film, entertaining in ways you wouldn't probably imagine and whilst not a mainstream cup of tea, everybody should see this film at least once. Sadly, there are rumblings of a remake, cited for release in 2011. Without knowing the director or any of the cast members, I can tell you that this will be an unmitigated disaster because this is one of those films that time should really leave alone.

Summary: A group of students is sent to an island to play a game - with no rules...