Sshhh... I think I hear someone... (Battle Royale (DVD))

Member Name: Jonny_Sleeze

Product:	Battle Royale (DVD)
Date:	12/05/04 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Visceral, Violent, Ultra-hip

Disadvantages: Hammy acting?

"What was that noise?"

"What noise?"

"Exactly... what was that noise..."

"What was what noise?"

"That noise!"

*At this point, the violent sound of an automatic weapon explodes in a frenzied burst, before a moment of silence. Smoke curls in the humid air and a body slumps, gory and bullet ridden, to the damp ground*

"Phew. Unlucky bugger"

"Well, it was him or us. I think it's a bit unfair that we've got these guns and he had a... what... saucepan lid?! Somebody's idea of a sick joke, obviously...."

"Ah well, that's the name of the game. Kill or be killed. Odd predicament we're in, actually, isn't it? I mean, who would have thought that in the near-distant future unemployment would be so high and the youth of this country would disintegrate to such an unruly extent that the government would warrant a high-casualty, vicious fight-to-the-death for an unlucky randomly-chosen high school class?"

"Shame it had to be us. Wait a minute... that reminds me of a film I saw a bit ago... Battle Royale I think it was called. Japanese effort. In fact, by some weird and bizarre coincidence, those exact circumstances you just described were the basis of that film!"

"Wow! It's almost like we're stuck in somebody's tenuous, desperate attempt to write an original review. And I bet that same person had already tried this concept-conversation thing when they reviewed Simcity 4 on the PC and now anyone that reads both will just roll their eyes and click somewhere else"

"Hey, drop that philosophical stuff, this is war, remember?"

"Oh yeh, how could I forget with this primed-to-explode neckla
ce around my neck monitoring my every movement? Anyway, tell me more about this film"

"Well, Kinji Fukasaku directs. Apparently, he's a favourite of John Woo and Quentin Tarantino, which actually says a great deal about this film; it has violence in bucketloads, but it never reduces it to that cosmetic, harmless display of slow-mo style that John Woo is so good at, and it has a number of well-worn movie devices (along with nods to Apocalypse Now, A Clockwork Orange etc) but it deploys them well and never resorts to outright pedantic tribute or self-parody, unlike Tarantino."

"Oh great. Can you keep your voice down? You'll draw maniacs from everywhere who'll want to kill you purely for your geeky film analysis."

"Right, yeh... anyway, I believe you neatly summed up their predicament... a class of unruly Japanese kids are picked at random and drugged on the bus en-route to what they believe is a school trip..."

"...like us..."

"...and wake up to find themselves in a darkened room, two new sultry fellas stalking the corners. The lights go on, and the brutal simplicity of their mission is explained. They are on a deserted island, burdened with explosive necklaces primed to blow out their jugular at any sign of misbehavior. Only one person can leave the island alive; the survivor. They are given random weapons ranging in usefulness, from binoculars to a machinegun, then told to kill each other. After some initial chaos in the briefing room which results in one student having his necklace prematurely detonated and another with a knife stuck through her brain, they are allowed to flea from the room one by one into the night, and the scene is set for some of the most vicious, edge-of-the-seat, blood-drenched ultra-violence in recent cinematic history. &#
73;t's a great concept, and it plays out perfectly"

"Ooh... tell me more"

"Well, it's just so refreshing. This is a film that could only have worked as well as it did if it was Japanese, because they have different movie, and cultural, criteria over there; it's about style, and re-working western conventions to suit their own. In this case, the result is stunning; whilst the reactions and acting seem hammy at times, it doesn't matter because the overall effect is shocking and stunning. There's portions of the film which seem under-developed at first, like the moments of sympathy the sadistic teacher feels for on of his class members, but the eventual revelation is still gut-level dramatic. It's familiar and alien, tacky but sophisticated, simple but complex. Beneath the blood and guts is an acute satire on reality TV that resonates around the world, and a subversive stab at Japanese society (check out the nauseas, garish enthusiasm of the presenter on the TV in the briefing room) that has stirred up a lot of controversy over there. Again, we can see the cultural divide in sharp focus; the unruliness of the kids at the beginning seems pretty lame compared to what us British kids get up to, but Japanese culture has a deeply embedded respect-your-elders aspect, and so the grim truth is that a lot of Japanese adults aren't actually far off advocating this kind of thing."

"Yes yes, but what about the bulk of the film itself?"

"Well, as you would expect, some students turn on each other out of desperation and others stick with their friends in the hope of finding some collaborative solution to the mess they're in. Others simply kill themselves. Shuya Nanahara and Shiori Kitano, the lead characters, find each other after leaving the school and resolve to find a way off
the island together. Added to the mix are two new kids, Kiriyama and some other person that I can't remember the name of. Anyhoo, Kiriyama turns out to be the bastard bad guy who's in it for fun, and the other one is a compassionate survivor of a previous game who's trying to find out what his girlfriend meant by her last smile before she died of bullet wounds. Hello... are you still listening?"

"Ssssh... it's an announcement"

*A distant voice from a loudspeaker barks a callous list of the dead into the morning haze, and announces a number of coordinates*

?Pah? Those pesky danger zones?

?Yep? in the film, each day has a new set of ?danger zones?, red-hot areas which trigger the necklaces attached to whichever unlucky kids hang around in them for too long. It?s one of many devices which instill the film with a razor-sharp tension; you never feel secure at any point because you feel like a brutal surprise could be just around each nervous corner. Also, despite the massive body count, it never resorts to gratuitous sensationalism. You feel a twinge of remorse for every character that dies, largely due to the empathy you feel for their teenage tribulations; childish grievances like who ?fancies? who, affiliation with ?gangs? and sexual jealousy are all played out with added bloodlust and merciless anger. Elsewhere, one group of girls carries on with their everyday frolicking, cooking food, gossiping, giggling and, eventually, murdering each other in a gory hail of bullets. It?s this juxtaposition between the character?s juvenile innocence and the ultra-violent that makes this film all the more shocking. Hormones ride high as friends turn on each other, sex-crazed horny teenagers resort to threats of rape and denim-clad girls hysterically fling hysterical accusations of sluttishness before riddling each other with machinegun bullets.
It beats American Pie, at any rate.?

?Sounds like a great film.?

?It is. Gripping stuff. Only one way out; kill or be killed; a sole survivor.

Its? whu? what are you doing with that saucepan lid? No?NOOOOO!?

*Splat*

Summary: