Battle Royale review

 Number 501 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Japanese action-thriller 'Battle Royale.'

In a dystopian future, to curtail rising teenage delinquency, the Japanese government forces a group of junior-high-school students to fight to the death on an abandoned island. These include aspiring love-birds Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko Nakagawa (Aki Maeda,) exchange students, wildcards and former champions - the quiet Shogo Kawada (Taro Yamamoto,) and the psychotic Kazuo Kiriyama (Masanobu Ando), and the mysterious but equally psychotic Mitsuko Souma (Kou Shibasaki.)

Battle Royale was the Hunger Games before the Hunger Games. There is an on-going debate about which of the two is better - * cough cough* it is Battle Royale, by a country mile. Yes, Battle Royale is cheesy, over-the-top and pretty ridiculous at times, but that is what made it so enjoyable. Unlike, another film I could name, it doesn't take itself very seriously. It is dour and downbeat at times, but also self-aware and funny. The contestants constantly acknowledge the absurdity of their situation. And even the creators of the game do too - to supposedly make things as fair as possible, they give the kids a different weapon each - some get guns, some get knives, some get nunchucks - Shuya and Noriko get binoculars and a cooking pot lid.

The tournament begins with forty-two contestants and things are very confusing at first. All of the schoolkids are dressed the same in their uniforms meaning that it was difficult to tell them apart. Director Kinji Fukasaku tries his best to give each of the kids an important scene before their inevitable deaths, arguably he does a better job than other directors have done, but there were just too many characters for me to care about. It was only after the competition started to get whittle down did things become clearer. 

But then again, Fukasaku was just killing off the supporting cast, so he could properly focus on our principle characters - such as Kawada who entered the competition to gain revenge on the tournament's founder - former teacher Kitano (Takeshi Kitano.) Kawada won the last tournament at the expense of his former love. 

The stylised violence does border on the excessive at times, I don't think I've ever seen so much spurting blood before. And, perhaps you can argue it was a little silly that each character stays alive long enough to get a memorable death scene. However, a lot of this violence is offset with emotional storylines. We see love and lust blossom among a lot of the contestants - we see tales of friendship and tales of heartbreak. Some of the kids commit suicide instead of fighting. Other abstain from fighting altogether and the strongest group together. All of the reactions were so human. But, most importantly, we see kids act like kids. These aren't adults who have willingly volunteered for this gladatorial fight to the death, but school kids who are being punished by the Japanese Government. And that's where Fukasaku succeeded. Yes, the actual concept and execution might be a little spurious, but the characterisation felt real.

And some of the best characterisation comes from the film's antagonist: Kitano. His backstory is explained within a flashback where he resigns from his teaching job after being knifed by one of his students. It is later explained that he has a tumultuous relationship with his own estranged daughter. Yet like many of the other characters *spoiler alert,* he stays alive long enough so he can have famous last words. After Shuya supposedly shoots him dead, he stands up, answers the phone and then dies for real. Kitano's backstory is explained as him having a tumultuous relationship with his own daughter. Pretty ridiculous, but entertaining nonetheless. This all added to the rich tableau of Battle Royale. A tableau that's a hell of a lot richer than the bloody Hunger Games.