“This year’s game is said to be more blistering than the last… Oh look, there! There she is! The winner’s a girl! Surviving a fierce battle that raged 2 days, 7 hours and 43 minutes… the winner is a girl! Look, she’s smiling! Smiling! The girl definitely just smiled!” -A reporter at the beginning of Battle Royale (2000); text quoted from IMDb.
*Ahem.*
All rejoice~~!!! After ages of wanting to borrow it, I’ve finally finished watching the movie Battle Royale (thanks Chris for lending it to me!!) by Kinji Fukasaku. However, it is now… 2007… and wow that movie was filmed in… 2000 =.= gah I feel soooo outdated!!! (Read about it here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266308/combined) I can’t be blamed for being ’slow’ to get the disk, though, coz the film was banned in Malaysia >.>
Overall primary comments on it is that I really enjoyed the film, and not just because it is a Mature-Age gory-seeming movie supposedly full of blood, angst, murder and war. Lol.
…Okay, so I can’t deny that it’s a eerie movie about poor innocent 9th-graders being forced by a sadistic and wrong society (propelled into madness by their terror towards the looming generation) into killing each other off in order to survive, and that there are a lot of flashy, descriptive, blood-splattering killing going on in there, but Battle Royale (Batoru Rowaiaru) is definitely more than another cheap horror flick that thrives on scaring the shit out of people in cold cinemas.
It is deep.
It tells viewers about human nature. About how the world will collapse if logical reasoning is no longer applicable because of the fear of a population towards forces that they can not control. About how the desire to live or to protect can drive people to turn their back upon former beliefs and turn against former friends and close ones. About how the Pandora’s Box is not such a myth as it is, when there are no longer any shackling restraints to hold back all the seven sins (and more). About how despite all odds, there actually is Hope left, and that people are not all baser in nature.
Some may (politely) query why the producers couldn’t present all of these messages in a more user-friendly way. As in, maybe less blood? Less killing of friends? Less depravation? *arches an eyebrow* (Why don’t they just ask Hollywood to stop blowing up cars and shattering glass windows?)
To tell the truth, this film has caught my attention much, much more because through the use of such an extraordinary, gore-filled and distaste-compelling storyline (ie BR), the scriptwriters and brains behind the production still managed to portray the best qualities of men.
I mean, hey the movie packs a great deal of what some people would term ‘gross ickiness’, ’sick happenings’, and more. It doesn’t really seem to be a very nice, attractive thingamajiggy that crowds would flock to, get touched and inspired, and cry to.
But then again… who’s to say that crowds did not get touched and inspired, and cry to the plot?
Note Sugimura Hiroki, who told his killer to run because others would hear the gunshots and come hunting for her. That scene where Kotohiki Kayoko passionately exclaims that she could never have suspected so because he’d never seemed to notice her is… so damned true =.=” (I actually thought he liked Chigusa Takako–note all those damned flashbacks and that touching ‘Hiroki…Chigusa…you’re the coolest girl I know’ scene in the middle of the movie! Even when he said ‘no’ to her question: ‘It’s not me, right?’ I was still puzzling over what that really meant. ‘No, it’s not you’, or ‘No, it IS you’?? Arghhhh….)
Observe ‘Beat’ Kitano, who used a water gun against the remaining students instead of the real gun that he sported, so that they could all escape together. His actual compassion towards them (or maybe just Nakagawa Noriko) had been evident from when he passed Noriko the umbrella in the rain. Perhaps it was due to the happenings during Noriko’s first appearance? Hmm. He’d obviously already suspected something when Kawada Shougo pretended to turn against Noriko and Nanahara Shuyo, since he’d ordered his men not to go certify the deaths as procedure warranted. The painting was another ‘oooooh’ factor, I guess o.o blah.
See Kawada, who helped Shuyo and Noriko survive up til the end. Nice guy. Though I wonder what his dad actually was o.o” Doctor? Chef? Fisherman? Huh? Make up your mind, kid XD He was pretty good with the weapons, too ^_~ and a very nice, intelligent guy.
And… and… and I’m too lazy to write more on this today. Go watch the movie, you slackers!! After reading all that in my blogpost above, though, please remember that you’ve been warned that this creation contains a lot of disturbing images that might not be aesthetically pleasing to certain viewers’ eyes *coughcoughSerenecoughcough*.
Highly recommended, still. No, make it ultra-highly. (For a teaser, look at some quotes for it!)
After all, it has a few cute girls in it (note: ‘cute’ as in physically attractive) who wear REALLY short skirts, flip over and under tables (falshing off a lot of ruffling cloth), and have great legs.
Kawada is pretty hot to some if you prefer guys, and there’s a cool computer-hacking guy if intellectuals turn you on (I wanted him lol).
And it has a great, sweet, sappy-like ending that will make you coo ‘awwww’.
…Combine all the factors above that I have expanded upon… and… well, what more can you ask for?
