Mediocre Movie Club Movie Reviews

Battle Royale

8/18/2015

C+
2.41

I couldn’t decide if it was visionary or one of those movies that just tried to do so much that it ended up doing it all in a mediocre fashion - Lane
I do think there's a certain amount of leeway that has to be given to Battle Royale - Jon
This movie is batshit crazy and partially incoherent, which makes it very similar to almost every Japanese movie I've ever seen - Shane

Initial review by Bobby

So... Battle Royale's premise is that society is struggling through a bad economy and children's complete lack of respect for authority. The solution to this is apparently a randomly selected class participating in a to-the-death Royal Rumble on some remote island. While the event seems to be a big deal with television coverage around winners, it doesn't seem like the class chosen to play has any clue about this. So, how it's supposed to resolve any of the issues that Japan is having, I don't know. Battle Royale is flawed... the plot is a bit wonky and the acting is a bit exaggerated at times. Frankly, I don't care.

The beginning of the film sets the mood... crowds and television crew making a big deal of the winner of the Battle Royale, giving us the image of the bloody young victor, who smiles. This smile instantly made me think of Gogo, from Kill Bill. Interesting enough, Chiaki Kuriyama (who played the part of Gogo), is in Battle Royale... and I guess Gogo was based off of her role in the film, including all the crotch stabbing. Anyway, I liked the intro scene as a mood setter, but it felt disconnected from the rest of the film.

Honestly, I'm sort of uninterested in any themes or social commentary from the movie. I do, however, wish we were given more on how the Battle Royales actually do any good, or what happens to the winners (beyond just surviving and being on TV for a moment). Maybe it was because we never say an connection between the Battle Royale and the outside world beyond the very first scene.. but that made it feel like there really wasn't a point to it all beyond the sport of it. There's a lot of focus on connecting and sacrifice among the children, as well as standing up to abuse of authority. There's certainly a poke at modern education as well. That's all well and good, and they add to what the film is. So, anybody who wants to look further into those, and other, themes can certainly find fuel for that fire.

When it comes down to it, though, I enjoyed Battle Royale for what it is... an entertaining action movie filled with thrills and a dark premise. As odd as it may seem to say about a movie involving kids killing each other... Battyle Royale is a fun movie. The scene that really stands out, for me, is the instruction video. The video itself is fantastic. Her exaggerated excitement and mannerisms are in such conflict with video's subject and the horror the children are starting to feel. Once the interruptions start and Kitano throws the knifes... the back and forth from the kids' fear and disgust to the joyous video plays out well. I was worried that they were going to recite each and every student's name before we got going, and while that did happened, the introductions went well with the announcements throughout the battle.

Once we get into the field, we're greeted with instant action via crossbow. From there it was pretty non stop with the occasional down shifts for characterization and dialogue. It was interesting seeing the interactions between classmates, some friends turned enemy and some acquaintances revealing stronger relationships. I thought seeing how the students reacted in such different ways to the situation they were thrown into was really interesting. Some trying to group together and just happily survive as long as possible, while others more aggressively pushing the action.. be it out of fear or other motivation. Most of the deaths were well executed for how the film was presented, and having such a variety of deaths was important since we knew there had to be around 40 of them. The aforementioned Kuriyama kill of Niida stood out, as well as the showdown between the two most prolific killers, Mitsuko and Kiriyama. It seemed pretty obvious that we'd see Shuya and Noriko get through this, but I was all right with it... as their relationship with Kawada and final showdown with Kitano was satisfying enough.

I mentioned how I heard of the film when Hunger Games first came out and was occasionally accused of ripping off Battle Royale. While we can clearly see the similarity of children killing each other, Battle Royale lacks the standout hero and rebellion. This only makes me wonder happens in the after math of Battle Royale... I doubt it ends with Kitano's death, but there weren't any signs that Shuya and Niroko were going to go on a crusade to put an end to it. Maybe they tackle that in Battle Royale 2, but from what I've seen it's bad to the point of not wanting to find out.

I feel like I'm skipping a ton of things... like the plot issues with the hacking, building bombs, microphones in the collars, etc, so feel free to hit all the points I ignored. But, as I said, I'm okay with it all. Of course, with those things going on, I just can't put this movie in the A range. It was, however, certainly entertaining and kept me interested throughout... enough so to go B+

52 Comments

Admin

8/17/2015 08:18:36 pm

Spot saved for direct replies to initial review.

Phil

8/18/2015 05:57:16 am

The first time I watch Battle Royale, I was in college and I was wasted. That’s the correct way to watch this movie. It makes the killing fun, the overwrought sappiness tolerable, and the surprisingly dense plot easier to ignore. This is a movie trying to do way too many things but ultimately is still a fun watch.

So a lot is happening in this movie. We’ve got the Nanahara/Nakagawa relationship, whatever is going on with Kawada, Kiriyama the crazed killer who volunteered to be there, the three kids hacking the system, Mitsuko going nuts, high school puppy love, Kitano’s home life, and I’m sure I missed something. Three quarters of these subplots can be either ignored or scrapped completely. I definitely just heard names and didn’t even bother attempting to connect them to someone. Some of these plotlines are there to cater to the Japanese audience – if you’ve ever played a JRPG, you know how nuts they are with that high school love. Battle Royale went to that well about three times too many, and it resulted in melodrama of the highest order you could expect in a movie like this. Also clearly there for the Japanese audience is the idea that disrespecting your elders leads to a death match against your friends. Sounds like a nice horror story for Japanese schoolchildren no doubt.

That said, there are some nuggets of truth in here in some very good scenes. Bobby already mentioned the great instructional scene. I also thought the kitchen scene between the girls was fantastic, going from friendly chatter to utter chaos in the blink of an eye. It showed just how fragile trust was in this sort of situation, and the girl lamenting how they could have all survived was a nice topper to the scene. One other solid scene was the attempted “rape” of Chigusa b/c of how honest it felt. We’re talking 9th graders here, who have barely had any life. If you don’t think one would be crazy enough to go after a classmate they pined for, only to be stabbed in the crotch repeatedly, you don’t know much about teenagers, now do you?

Performances are fine here, but nothing will blow you away. There are some fun characters here, but with 42 classmates, a good deal of throwaway characters too. Nakagawa and Nanahara are extremely uninteresting. Kawada is confusing but fun to watch. I appreciate Kiriyama getting no backstory other than he volunteered – perfect, that’s all I need. Mitsuko is the character I remember most though, being wholly transformed on the island from a picked-on loser to a cold-blooded killing machine. (Fun Mitsuko fact that ties back to Bobby’s Kill Bill stuff – that actress was supposed to play Gogo’s sister, a character cut late from the movie. If you look in the background of the scene after The Bride kills Vernita, there’s an ice cream truck that was supposed to be driven by Gogo’s sister, and a crazy fight would have then ensued. Oh well, cheated out of that one.) I also wish we would’ve spent more time with the nerds hacking the place. I think there’s a better movie where those three are the protagonists and we wash away the melodramatic stuff. Someone get Hollywood on the phone!

If I had to describe Battle Royale with one word, it’d be “unbalanced.” Ton of great stuff, ton of really bad stuff. It’s still an enjoyable movie, but there’s potential for so much more there.

+ Fun premise
+ Several great characters and scenes
- Way too much going on
- Sappy at times
- Main characters are very boring

Grade: B-

Jon

8/18/2015 08:29:36 pm

Is it fair to knock a movie for being melodramatic, when it's about teenagers who are predisposed to melodrama?

8/19/2015 03:57:36 am

Probably a fair point, and I think I would have turned a blind eye to it if it wasn't overused. I think the bigger issue was that it was used with throwaway characters in throwaway scenes two times too many.

Cooker

8/18/2015 06:41:17 am

Yeah. I watched Battle Royale 2, I think last year, and it was pretty bad. Basically, the survivors do start a rebel group. A future Battle Royale sends the participants to try and kill Shuya and the rebels. Eventually, they join up and the U.S. Army gets involved somehow. I vaguely remember it because it was so stupid.

8/18/2015 07:24:49 am

Battle Royale and the Hunger Games piss me off in the sense that the first script I started after college, and sadly am still working on because I procrastinate too much, has a vaguely similar plotline. And yes, I do still plan to finish it and attempt to do something with it.
Anyhoo, I watched Battle Royale and its lame sequel last year. I gave the first a re-watch and my score of a B remains the same. It does come across very Hunger Games-ish, but there’s no love triangle, just a lot of high school crushes and desperations of sharing feelings before getting shot in the face.
This movie does a great job with sucking you into the story early. A father kills himself, a teacher gets stabbed in the leg, you’ve got your friends on a bus eating cookies and then all hell breaks loose. We learn the rules of the Battle Royale (although with supposed media coverage, I couldn’t buy that the entire class had no idea what was going on), we’re introduced to the two transfer students (the crazed-killer one for some reason reminded me of Heath Ledger from 10 Things I Hate About You), and these apparently innocent school kids start killing each other from the get go.
Two notes I jotted down from the introduction to the Royale scene… I was a little shocked that Nobu was killed off before the competition started. It appeared that he would play a major role, although he does appear in flashback sequences. I guess it’s good to have an early shock death in these situations. I also had to chuckle when the teacher’s corpse was brought in on the cart. It reminded me of the Halloween Simpsons episode where Martin Prince dies in school. “Not in the kindergarten class!”
Counting the fatalities and making announcements as to which students died and how many were left was clearly “borrowed” by the Hunger Games. The problem I had with this is that there are a lot of freakin’ kids in the movie and most of them are given no background or story whatsoever. That’s when the formula develops—introduction of a kid, they get killed, they announce that they die, someone reacts, people talk, and continue. And there were 40 some kids! It was nice when a group was offed all at once. I reacted to this formula similarly to how I did with the Paranormal Activity one—rotation through cameras as nothing happens, something minor happens, they discussed what happened the next day, and repeat. I just wanted that “kids remaining” number to decrease. Push the movie along. Now, some of the death sequences were kind of cool, some were comical, some were like, what the? And who could forget the flying head with the grenade in its mouth?
So, a majority of the students are irrelevant. Toward the end you have your protagonists Shuya and Noriko, who weren’t very interesting; Kawada, a former competitor; a group of hackers/bomb makers (that group kind of pissed me off, again, something to do with my script); Mitsuko, the badass girl with a screwed up past; Kiriyama, aka Heath Ledger; and a group of girls hiding in a lighthouse that end up killing each other.
I’m glad we got to see a showdown between Mitsuko and Kiriyama, the two with the most kill tallies, although I was disappointed that it was rather anticlimactic. The hacker group manages to put a virus in the control center’s system before all of them were offed by Heath Ledger. This allowed for the end sequence to happen and for three competitors to survive the game.
Now, about the end sequence... That just seemed very out of place for me. Kitano gets shot multiple times and then just hops up and answers his phone as if nothing happened. And what the hell was up with the cookies?
I found the… was it a love interest, with Kitano and Noriko a little disturbing. But these things happen. Hell, there were plenty of other disturbing things in this movie. And sadly Kawada dies on the boat from his injuries after they leave, the two remaining survivors flee and make a crappy sequel. I did dig the song during the end credits.
All-in-all, an interesting concept, a little repetitive, girls in skirts, plenty of guns and killings galore. It’s a fun action movie. I stick with my B.

8/18/2015 09:03:46 am

I came to the conclusion that the end sequence with Kitano was a failed comedic attempt. He was extremely possessive of those cookies, so of course he would delay death to finish them off.

8/18/2015 08:33:19 pm

Per my review, I think it was the director using one last opportunity to show how ridiculous the priorities of the adults were. Kitano uses his last breath to tell his daughter to fuck off.

8/18/2015 08:31:50 pm

Mmmm, Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace. Martin's gasping shrieks before he dies are such great reads.

Sean

8/18/2015 09:58:27 am

I watched BR the first time around 4 am while Kellen was being a jerk. So I rewatched thinking I mustve missed a major plot hole. On rewatch, nope they left it out.

Long intro explaining the youth suck so they pass a BR law- great ok the law is here to adjust behavior by instilling fear in youth. Hoard of media converges on a winner, great this is also a form of entertainment and the winners gain celebrity and coverage of the event makes this a spectacle. The class chosen has never heard of the BR law and has no effing clue what is going on. Really? From there I'm out on this movie being good. If you're going to screw that up then the action better be pretty damn amazing.

Onto the action, while it was believable that so many of the kids were inept when it came to killing one another while a couple of them were ruthless mother fuckers with bad aim- once the believability went out the window with the BR law I wanted these kids to look like young Ernie Reyes Jrs and give me some kickass acrobatic killings.

Teacher was great and the video was awesome especially with teacher interacting with the video but otherwise I was pretty meh.

I was merely whelmed D+

Bobby

8/18/2015 02:57:32 pm

When you mentioned on FB before that you went back and rewatched it to check a plot hole, I figured it was about the class not knowing about the BR. From what I understand, the book is far more cohesive... and I do wonder what a really good remake of it would do (aside from get some idiots calling it a rip off of Hunger Games). I'd be all for it.

I read a review that basically thinks the grand explanation of the BR isn't really for the sake of the class as much as it is for the audience. Either way, It didn't really bother me because the movie seems to hold a satirical tone throughout and never really tries to take itself too seriously. I mean, it doesn't laugh at itself to the point of Machete or Sharknado, but the way it all is presented and plays out makes it feel like the movie is just having some fun with the material.

Lane

8/18/2015 11:10:00 am

This was one of those movies that, when it ended, I couldn’t decide if it was an A or a C-. I couldn’t decide if it was visionary or one of those movies that just tried to do so much that it ended up doing it all in a mediocre fashion. Upon doing some post-viewing research, I learned that most critics opted for it being brilliant. I’m skeptical.

I’m having trouble putting together a coherent review for this movie, maybe because I found so much of this movie incoherent, so here are some general thoughts:

- As I watched this movie I couldn’t help but thinking that there is some joke that I’m missing out on. I felt like if I were watching this in a theater full of Japanese people, they would be laughing hysterically while I’m sitting there scratching my head.

- That’s another thing – the violence was so over the top that it became violence for comic effect. I don’t like that kind of violence. If you’re going to make an extremely violent movie, I’d prefer it be a “make my testicles crawl up inside me” kind of violence. This was just cartoonish.

- I kept wondering what some of the more literal minded members of our group would think of this movie. There are plot points that are so gaping you could drive a truck through them.

- In that scene where Shuya was all bandaged up after having been passed out for a day or two, did that girl suggest that she raped him while he was passed out? I didn’t quite understand that. Shane – what legal ramifications does Shuya possess in that case? Would she have faced legal charges if she hadn’t been mowed down by a machine gun in the very next scene? These are important things to consider.

- Yet – I thought the directing was pretty brilliant. The wide angle long shots, the quick zoom to extreme close ups – they do something to you psychologically. And the kids, though poor actors in general, overplayed the whole Japanese school kid thing in just the right way. So, even though the acting was bad, it fit the movie.

In final judgment – I didn’t care for it. Maybe it’s brilliant, but this beholder didn’t see it.

C-

Liked:
- Directing and camera work
- The way Japanese school girls giggle

Disliked
- I didn’t really understand it.
- Why are girls so mean?

Bryan

8/18/2015 02:21:08 pm

"- As I watched this movie I couldn’t help but thinking that there is some joke that I’m missing out on. I felt like if I were watching this in a theater full of Japanese people, they would be laughing hysterically while I’m sitting there scratching my head."

Bingo. And incoherent is a great description of this movie.

Shane

8/20/2015 04:13:07 am

1. Japanese women actually laugh like that in certain company. It's insane and after 8 days in Japan, I was not used to it.

2. You get some leeway as an emergency responder generally. This is especially true in states that have wisely passed good samaritan acts. However, you still cannot act negligently in saving someone. You're held to a standard of reasonableness for your situation. If you're a nurse, you are expected to be more careful type thing.

Also, fun fact, once you start saving one, unless there is a threat against your life, you may not stop saving someone. For example: I see Bryan on the side of the road after he's been hit by a tractor in rural Illinois. I stop my Tesla (I get a Tesla because its a hypothetical) and get out and look at him and then leave. Bryan is later struck by another tractor and dies. I'm not liable because I merely looked at him.

Let's say I get out of my Tesla and call 911 and start reassuring Bryan. But then I realize I need to set my fantasy team and the 3G in rural Illinois is crap, so I hop in the car and drive off before the rural Illinois emergency responders get there on their horses and buggies. If he is struck by another tractor and dies, I could be liable because I unreasonably abandoned a rescue.

A bit off point, sure. But any time you can kill Bryan twice in a hypothetical, you gotta go for it.

So, all that said, even emergency responders aren't allowed to sexually assault or batter a person they're saving. But they can probably dress your wounds and change you. In this case, the girl was pretty cute, so probably some mixed feelings there. Adam Carolla believes that any sexual assault that you later masturbate to should not be a crime (like hot teacher and teenage boy situations). That's not a legal standard, though. But it can also be pretty weird, like when Marty McFly's mom dressed him while she was a teenager and he was unconscious. Pretty odd emotions there.

Drew

8/20/2015 04:50:02 am

WTF?

8/20/2015 06:51:15 am

It's a very fancy legal argument. It's probably pretty tough to handle. Basically, if you need to touch someone's dong while providing emergency aid or something, it's probably OK.

8/20/2015 06:52:50 am

I don't know why it's popping up as Drew for my name. Weird. This is Shane.

Lawyer Bot

8/20/2015 06:54:48 am

Another fun fact.

If a doctor sees you having a heart attack in public and saves your life while waiting for an ambulance to arrive, he can charge you for his services even though you never consented to the procedure.

Kiriyama

8/20/2015 07:19:58 am

What if I kick you in the balls?

8/20/2015 02:14:54 pm

Thanks for clearing that up Shane. I first thought it was just a strange scene with overtones of sexual abuse, but I can now see how Shuya could maybe call that one up during some future sad, lonely time in his life. So, the Corrola rule applies, I think.

8/20/2015 03:29:49 pm

I heard Tesla is planning a 30k model for the common man to be released in a few years

It was probably just a crime of passion where one person came at the end

8/20/2015 03:54:57 pm

Don't leave me.

8/18/2015 02:19:13 pm

This was pretty brutal thinking back on it. I have lesson plans to write so I'll keep this brief. From my notes.

At the time of watching, I appreciated getting straight to the point, but looking back I wish there would have been some more build up to why in the word this ever start past a couple of brief screens and text snipits.

The bus rid built some arc for the students, but not enough to go through a 10 minute screening of all the names being called. We got the point pretty quickly. And the teacher was such a stickler for the rules, but when transfer-guy broke them to get a new bag there was no punishment. That was a bit irritating.

I couldn't tell if the movie was trying to be serious or mocking a genre of movie which I am not aware.

I have negative signs by "weird flashbacks" and "slip from the teacher" but I don't remember what I was talking about. I should have written my review a week ago.

This was pretty silly overall and not my cup of tea. D+ if it's supposed to be cheesy. F if it's supposed to be serious.

8/20/2015 03:45:28 am

"And the teacher was such a stickler for the rules, but when transfer-guy broke them to get a new bag there was no punishment. That was a bit irritating."

Because he was a plant. For a movie that had some big logic leaps, that wasn't one of them.

8/20/2015 03:56:17 pm

Was he a hibiscus?

It wasn't that it bothered me as a plot hole, it just bothered me justice-ly.

8/18/2015 03:15:13 pm

My initial reaction to this was to veto because I have had enough of foreign films but I thought against it. Big deal.

I honestly do not know what to make of this film. It had no major plot but the main idea was survival. In that regard, it reminded me of Lord of the Flies, which is fine but Battle Royale was much smaller than it.

Not only was the film's premise bothersome for me, but also some specific scenes that caused me heartburn. For one, the hackers. They were able to hide for a while and complete a bunch of prerequisite tasks before hacking into the mainframe. Then suddenly, the lone wolf anti - hero finds them and kills them, after they complete hacking into the system. That was fairly convenient. Now, it must be stated how it fell into the film's timeline. They were part of the final seven and since they were in the only place that had not been searched, it was process of elimination they would be found. The reason, however, all that is bothersome was how little camera time the crew had. The camera showed them finding the place, maneuvering some things, hacking into the system, and finally dying. It appeared like those characters in a B rated horror film who get on the screen because something was going to happen to them.

The other thing that made me cringe was toward the end. They kill the teacher and then all of a sudden, he awakens, answers the phone, says he will not return home, and dies...again. What?! That was over the top. Bah!

I do not know if I would recommend this to someone if they like the Hunger Games. Sure, perhaps its author was inspired by Battle Royale but it certainly was a vast improvement.

At any rate, if I am unsure about a film, it usually lands in the C range. I do not hate it like I do others but I do not love it either. Nor would I recommend it but it would make a great drunken watch and post. C is the best I can do.

Grade: C

8/18/2015 04:59:55 pm

Agree. There were just too many characters. The hackers would have been a fine B story line if they could have just gotten more screen time. This movie would have been much better with 20 kids and a 1 hour 35 minute runtime.

8/18/2015 08:27:37 pm

That's another plot hole I hadn't considered. Why are the hackers able to stay in that one area for so long? Why wasn't their section ever highlighted as a danger zone? I don't agree that they necessarily needed more screen time, though they do get some added coloring in the extended edition.

8/19/2015 06:52:14 am

Another reason why there might be a better movie in there by making them the main characters. Watching them deal with that stuff and having to be on the move as they crash the system sounds fun to me.

8/19/2015 06:53:13 am

Drew, did you like Kiriyama? He didn't feel at all like an anti-hero to me... he was just a run of the mill terminator villain.

8/19/2015 08:19:52 am

"Like" is a bit much but he had a cool look about him.

Define a "run of the mill terminator villain." That appears specific as opposed to a broad description.

8/20/2015 01:07:27 am

So he has a cool look but no other redeeming qualities or interesting facts? In other words, he's Sephiroth in movie form. (Call J-Set, I'm shit-talkin Final Fantasy 7 again!)

Whenever I see a villain that is emotionless and kills without remorse, I compare them to Terminator. There are others examples that could be used, but Terminator is who comes to mind for me.

8/20/2015 02:58:09 am

What facts - other than he's a previous winner and kills mercilessly - do we know about him, Phil?

8/20/2015 03:43:27 am

Is he actually a previous winner? That's my point though - no interesting facts. He's just there to kill. That's it.

8/20/2015 03:48:19 am

Ok...so what is your original gripe?

8/20/2015 04:32:37 am

Sephiroth had depth, damnit. He looked crazy cool ALL THE TIME. How?

8/20/2015 04:59:35 am

My original gripe was the use of the term "anti-hero." That implies depth, which Kiriyama had zero of.

Shane, you raise valid points about Sephiroth.

8/20/2015 05:09:13 am

Phil, it was his on screen aura. This is not the WWE where we need months of storylines and to establish some depth about the character. If depth is what we examine, an argument can be made that was lacking in nearly all of the characters.

The anti - hero sentiment came from his actions and presence. If he smoked either a cigar or cigarette would have sealed the deal for me. That's where I got it.

8/20/2015 03:32:28 pm

He was cool in the rebellious loner dude type of cool. Had he shown up as a transfer on any other non-murdering school day he would've been all mysterious and at least 3 of the girls would want him- the crazy one who is good at killing for sure

8/18/2015 08:21:47 pm

On the one hand, I expected everyone to pretty much get on board with the off-the-wall aspect of Battle Royale and just go along for the ride. On the other hand, it's not terribly surprising that plot holes broke the movie for some, especially the more literal Drew and Bryan. I don't want to reduce another's criticism to 'you didn't get it,' but I do think there's a certain amount of leeway that has to be given to Battle Royale. Phil hints at it with his JRPG mention. I don't speak from expertise, having only seen a couple dozen proper Japanese films, but the emotions tend to be heightened and there's a lot of what modern audiences would call over-acting, even in all-time great films like Rashomon. That aesthetic combined with ultra-violence might be a fundamental stumbling block for some, but for me, it's a way into the operatic nature of the film. That, plus the empathetic depiction of teenagers and the historical perspective the director brings to it, makes me overlook the students' apparent ignorance of the BR system and Kitano's outsized influence over the military. Why can a school teacher order the military to disperse, exactly?

The roots of this movie reach back decades ago. Japan's prime minister has been in the news recently because of some non-statements he made about Japanese WWII atrocities. This is more of the same from this guy, who visited a militaristic shrine to the Japanese dead early in his term, and has been saber-rattling with China over some disputed islands. It seems like this guy is flouting what is accepted history outside of Japan (probably inside Japan, too), and is incurring criticism for going against the accepted narrative. I bring this up because I'm very curious what it must be like to live in a country that the world agrees engaged in evil like Germany or Japan, and learn history. We should know with slavery, but Lost Cause mythology, so on and so forth. What is it like to not put your country on a pedestal? We start from greatness, and maybe learn about shades of gray in high school and college. What would it be like to start from disaster and genocide? When does a German kid first hear the word Holocaust? How does a Japanese kid learn about Tokyo hosting the Olympics or Japanese manufacturing supremacy after reading about the Manchurian campaigns or the Bataan Death March?
(Sidebar: Watch the Act of Killing. I don't think there's another documentary that has raised so many questions about history, humanity, and what we're capable of living with than it.)

To bring it back to Battle Royale, the director, Kinji Fukasaku, was a teenager at the tail end of WWII, and he was conscripted to work in a munitions factory. The factory would regularly get bombed, everyone wold huddle together, those on the outside of the huddle would be killed, they'd be buried, and work would continue til the next bombing. He emerged from that experience hateful towards authority, and as a last film, Battle Royale's pretty much perfect for someone like that to go out on. The adults' plans to turn teenagers against themselves don't really make sense, and I would argue that's on purpose. Just as Fukasaku felt that he and his peers were commanded by some faraway general to be grist for the mill, so are the kids of Class 3-B sent to massacre each other for an ill-defined purpose. I'm willing to overlook the story flaws, which are undeniable, because I think Fukasaku doesn't want to even pretend that this is for something. To do so would give the adults cover, cover which he was denied as a teenager in a munitions factory.

8/18/2015 08:22:41 pm

Even if the tactics of the BR plan were more shored up, the strategy is revealed to be counter-productive. If the idea is to cow the youth into compliance, the actual result is turning the youth into psychopaths or shells. The opening scene, with the news crews shrieking about the smiling winner, is a victory for the viewer, because it's an awesome scene, but a loser for Japan, as they've just loosed a smirking maniac onto their populace. What do we think Kiriyama is doing when not signing up for Battle Royales? Is he trimming his bonsai tree and stopping at Jiro's, dreaming of sushi? It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that Mitsuko would've won. Having realized she's pretty good at killing people, the government would be foolish to think that would end when she's back in society. Even when non-sociopaths Shuya and Noriko win, they go back into the country to try and bring it down from the inside. It's predictable for a nation to be afraid of its youth. Battle Royale's take, where a society becomes actively antagonistic, is a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom, a country going to war with its source of renewal. A pretty apt allegory for how Fukasaku felt about his experience if ever there was one.

The historical perspective 100% worked for me. The emotional perspective was less successful, but still worked. I think Battle Royale starts from the idea that everything is amped to 11 for teenagers, and then matches their assumption of life-and-death stakes with actual life-and-death stakes. Take the lighthouse scene. That's something that could have taken place outside of the island. Just five teenage girls making lunch and chatting about what they're going to do with the rest of their day. It's not unlikely that things would deteriorate quickly, and tempers would flare, and a couple girls would stomp off vowing never to talk to her former friends again. Except in the film, everyone's armed to the teeth and the emotions are just as unstable. That's just one example, but many interactions play out like schoolyard ones, just with weapons at the ready. The first girl that femme fatale Mitsuko kills lets her guard down when she sees Mitsuko in her doorway, because maybe now, they can be friends and the girl's status can rise. Bullying incidents, remembered as playful jokes by the perpetrators, become the difference between joining a group that can keep you alive, or being left to your own devices. Of course one of the more pathetic boys would think that he can use this as an opportunity for sex, and of course some teen couples would take this chance to commit suicide together. If the Japanese already make their films with big emotions, casting teenagers to display those emotions is a natural fit.

Lastly, this is Tarantino's favorite movie made in the period he's been active, so since 1992. It's easy to see his aesthetic here, and he's pulled some aspects from it into his movies. There's plenty of homage to Battle Royale in the House of Blue Leaves fight from Kill Bill, particularly the ax to the head, and the Bride's stance on the railng echoes Kiriyama's, both with their samurai swords at the ready. There's also the Gogo Yubari connection that Bobby mentioned. I can hear Drew mumbling 'plagiarist,' but Battle Royale plagiarizes, too, with the Chigusa yellow track suit a direct echo of Bruce Lee (which was then also used in Kill Bill) and a character noticeably rejecting Lee's famous nunchuks at one point. Tarantino's exaltation of Battle Royale is what spurred me to watch it a few years ago, and while certainly nowhere near my favorite movies since 1992, I can see its appeal.

I'm a big fan of Battle Royale. My review's made a lot of excuses for it, but it's ultimately an exhilarating, over-the-top movie. The plot unquestionably has problems in a few places, but I can live with them. If the students openly knew about Battle Royale, what would have been different? They still would've been gassed, and once you get those necklaces on and you're in a room with jackbooted army thugs, that's it. It definitely has a specific wavelength that the viewer has to get on. I'm tuned in, and it gets a B+.

8/19/2015 02:31:34 am

Jons tidbits about the directors childhood make for a great analogy and back story, unfortunately it doesn't impact the grade for me. I shouldn't have to know a directors life story to be able to enjoy his film.

8/20/2015 05:11:26 am

Knowing about a director can help a grade for me, though I understand that is sort of silly for some. In this case, the explanation of his past bumped me from a B- to a B.

8/19/2015 06:50:26 am

I get where you're coming from Kissel, but a lot of this review feels like apologizing for deficiencies of the movie.

Tend to agree with Riley here about the director. Unless the director is a character in the movie (like the case with docs), I wouldn't think it should be a prerequisite to know their backstory in order to enjoy a movie. It helps me understand some of the decisions for sure, but I'm not adjusting my grade for that b/c 99% of American viewers would not know this.

As for the overexaggeration of emotions and whatnot in Japanese films in general, I don't know if I can get on board with that. So I'm supposed to ignore or forgive something because it's a poor stylistic choice by the industry in general? No thanks. If I want to watch a silly, needlessly complicated action-fest, I'll take Machete Kills over this.

8/19/2015 07:44:57 am

Most of my experience with Japanese film comes in 1 of 2 categories. Godzilla and Pornography. Sometimes these categories collide. Either way emotions are exaggerated.

8/19/2015 09:24:34 am

That's pretty much exactly what it is. I'm not bothered by the plot holes and want to figure out why.

This was a movie made for Japanese audiences, so it's got Japanese sensibilities. Armchair philosophizing here, but maybe the more buttoned-up, reserved Japanese society wants to go to movies to release that emotional pressure valve, and see people acting in ways that would be culturally unacceptable. Watching foreign films often means compromising a little.

8/19/2015 07:40:04 am

I read about the director as well, but like Sean and Phil... don't think it's relevant to the grade of the movie, but definitely a backstory worth knowing.

8/19/2015 03:09:47 pm

I've talked about death of the author before in relation to not caring about what the director wanted. Once you put something into the world, it doesn't belong to you anymore. In this case, though, I like the movie better as an elderly man grappling with his teenage experience than as a straightforward battle to the death.

8/20/2015 05:07:57 am

This movie is batshit crazy and partially incoherent, which makes it very similar to almost every Japanese movie I've ever seen. And I love Japanese cinema for that.

By American/Western standards, this movie does utterly lack in context and solid plotline. But Japanese movies aren't made like American movies because they're being made for an entirely different culture. In America, we want to know why something is exactly the way it is or we get mad and start punching people like a drunk Russell Crowe when confronted with a tiger. Conforming just to conform is alien to us. The term conformist is a pejorative.

Japanese culture is different in this aspect. Accepting things the way they are is the name of the game. Conforming is the goal and going against the group is verboten. So, when a Japanese film just says X and gives no reason, the Japanese audience will be all, "Yo, that's cool." Like with the hackers, its just accepted by the audience that it wouldn't become a danger zone because it never became a danger zone. That totally makes sense.

I could list half a dozen Japanese (or Eastern) movies where people just randomly gain super power or become incredibly adept at abilities they were previously mediocre at. Or good guys and bad guys alike that don't have a ton of depth other than looking cool as fuck. It's absolutely insane to me and I love it.

I don't know if that context helps anyone else enjoy a Japanese movie or not, but I know what to expect when I go into a Japanese movie. It's like mentally preparing for a horror movie or drinking a case of Sweetwater IPA before watching The Cobbler.

With that, this isn't my favorite Japanese movie, but it entertains big time. It does meander at times and some of the plot is glaringly missing even for a Japanese flick. It's also weird watching teens slaughter each other and I never quite got over it. Hunger Games gives us some morality with it that makes killing kids a bit easier to emotionally process. The teacher's motivation was actually explained a bit, but it became a bit convoluted.

I still loved both of the transfer student characters. Pretty typical Japanese cool characters and they nailed it. I'm good with our two protagonists as well. They don't have a lot of flavor, but they have enough depth for me to buy. I also thought they did a pretty good job with showing how unstable and dramatic teens are. They didn't make them act like tiny adults.

For directing choices, I agree with someone above that some of the sweeping shots were excellent. I also loved a few of the backing songs in certain scenes. Otherwise the choices were fairly inoffensive.

I'll wrap this up and respond to some comments.

B

WWII POW Vet

8/20/2015 03:34:47 pm

Seeing the word verboten used while describing the Japs gives me the shakes

8/20/2015 03:57:59 pm

Is B your Japanese floor?

B for bamboo!

8/21/2015 12:19:05 am

Nah. There are F Japanese movies out there, but I don't know why I'd ever see them.

Battle Royale

C+
2.41

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Battle Royale

C+2.41

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C+
2.41