Battle Royale

Who bought it? Max (Hey! Two in a row!)

Why? Come on. Duh.

Non-buyers response: This is another one of those movies where Max gets this mischievous grin on his face when he talks about how “excited” he is for me to watch this. I’m filled with dread.

Max’s Thoughts:

Here’s the thing: Megan was never going to like this movie. My hope was she’d, at best, appreciate it. Battle Royale takes place in an alternate version of the 1990’s where Japan has seen a rise in student-based rebellion and revolution for various movie-dystopia reasons. As a response to this and in an effort to (I guess) make the kids respect their elders, the BR Act was passed, forcing one middle school class a year into a little game of fighting to the death.

Actually, I’ll just let the most Japanese minute of film I’ve ever seen explain it.

This was one of those “formative” movies I’ve talked about here before. I watched it during that period in high school (overlapping The Edward Norton Period) where I started to really think about making movies. To me, Battle Royale played like a successful experiment in turning the most unappealing thing ever (child murder) and making an entertaining movie about it. An exercise in what you can get away with. Something that should be taught in film class rooms next to Le Chien Andalou when it comes to “here’s what you can get away with if you do it with enough artistry.”

Takeshi “Beat” Kitano is phenomenal as the ruthless Teacher, inserted into the source material (the crazy-ass-and-better-than-the-movie novel by Koushun Takami) just to give the legendary Kitano a role. Along with the character, they forced, via flashback, a psuedo-sexual relationship between Kitano and the main girl Noriko. But it’s worth it to have him in the film.

…till there’s only one left. Nothing’s against the rules.”

As you can tell from the embedded clip up there and as Megan found out, it’s a bit of a satire. That’s what Battle Royale 2 was missing, and that’s what any planned American remake would likely be missing too. The lack of seriousness and the overall campy nature of it allows this plot of child-on-child murder to play out without just feeling horrible. It has it’s moments though.

Pictured: The most ironic way to fend off a rape

It’s an easy KEEP IT for me. One of my all time favourites.

Megan’s Thoughts:

Max was correct in his idea that I wouldn’t like this movie but I actually enjoyed it far more than expected. It probably helps that my expectations were severely lowered with all of Max’s aforementioned lead-up grins (I’m beginning to think he does that on purpose so I won’t hate his movies.)

What I liked most about Battle Royale (which I’ve fondly nicknamed “The Original Hunger Games”) is, as Max put it, its ability to take a terrible subject matter (child murder) and make it entertaining. As a filmmaker we’re always looking for creative ideas and fresh takes on old news and I’d go out on a limb and say there may never be another take on child murder that would be green lit in this industry.

That’s what you’re worried about right now?

My second favourite part about this movie was that behind the crazy plot, the violence, the insane premise was that these characters were middle school kids, and even though they were murdering each other they still had some teenage tendencies. The boys were sex-crazed, they were all obsessed with popularity and some of the girls were straight-up bitches.

Boo, you whore.

But, violence aside, this movie did have its flaws in my opinion. It could have been at least 20 minutes shorter, with too many wide-angled pans of the scenery and some of the love confessions scenes dragged for eons, but that could also be my North American attention span, which has been whittled down to less than the amount of time it takes before you can skip a YouTube ad.

Overall, I don’t know that I’d watch this movie again, but I’d recommend anyone in film to watch it at least once. And frankly, it’s a pretty badass movie to talk about (and makes me feel cooler than talking about Hunger Games) therefore I’d go ahead and KEEP IT just for the novelty.

Verdict: keep.