Battle Royale is one of those rare films that grabs you from the get go.
Set in a Day after tomorrow' type future, Japan has gone to the dogs. In a theme familiar to a lot of Japanese films, the kids just aint right. They skip school and (shock) talk back to teachers. The government must do something, so they come up with the Battle Royale bill. Its not made too clear what the point of it is, but I assume its to make naughty kids straighten up and fly right for fear they will be next. Either that or its just a good way of keeping the bad boy population down.
Anyhow, what it all means is that a class gets trapped on an island and have to use any means to trim their population down to one. If there is more than one survivor left at the end of 3 day game' then their running man style head bands explode (unlike the running man, they don't blow the head off, they pack just enough punch to sever the throat and shower everyone with blood).
After waking up from being drugged, the starring class find themselves in a classroom (floors ominously covered in plastic) and are told the rules of the game by a hilarious info video. After much gnashing and wailing they are sent on their way with a survival pack and a weapon. Some of the weapons suck (lid from a pan) some don't (hand grenades).
As the children get about their business, we see their personalities develop. The bitch, the good girl, the brain and the good guy are all there, with their stories to tell. After their stories are told, they are usually dispatched with and we are then given a running total of the casualties.
One thing that works in BRs favour is that it is constantly inventive. New ways to die, graphics, story telling devices and such. Its never boring.
BR tells a good story. Admittedly there are a few plot holes (what happens in the danger zones'?), but all in all it keeps you going to the end. Beat' is very good too. As deadpan as you would expect, but emitting a strange empathy.
Its not quite the visceral attack on the senses we are lead to believe it is, however it is genuinely entertaining and it does make a lot of good ideological points.
Set in a Day after tomorrow' type future, Japan has gone to the dogs. In a theme familiar to a lot of Japanese films, the kids just aint right. They skip school and (shock) talk back to teachers. The government must do something, so they come up with the Battle Royale bill. Its not made too clear what the point of it is, but I assume its to make naughty kids straighten up and fly right for fear they will be next. Either that or its just a good way of keeping the bad boy population down.
Anyhow, what it all means is that a class gets trapped on an island and have to use any means to trim their population down to one. If there is more than one survivor left at the end of 3 day game' then their running man style head bands explode (unlike the running man, they don't blow the head off, they pack just enough punch to sever the throat and shower everyone with blood).
After waking up from being drugged, the starring class find themselves in a classroom (floors ominously covered in plastic) and are told the rules of the game by a hilarious info video. After much gnashing and wailing they are sent on their way with a survival pack and a weapon. Some of the weapons suck (lid from a pan) some don't (hand grenades).
As the children get about their business, we see their personalities develop. The bitch, the good girl, the brain and the good guy are all there, with their stories to tell. After their stories are told, they are usually dispatched with and we are then given a running total of the casualties.
One thing that works in BRs favour is that it is constantly inventive. New ways to die, graphics, story telling devices and such. Its never boring.
BR tells a good story. Admittedly there are a few plot holes (what happens in the danger zones'?), but all in all it keeps you going to the end. Beat' is very good too. As deadpan as you would expect, but emitting a strange empathy.
Its not quite the visceral attack on the senses we are lead to believe it is, however it is genuinely entertaining and it does make a lot of good ideological points.