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Battle Royale is a 2000 dystopian horror drama directed by Kinji Fukasaku and written by his son Kenta Fukasaku. It’s notable for being Fukasaku’s last film and for its controversial gore and violence involving teenagers that got the movie banned in several countries.
Let me just start this review off by saying, this is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should probably go watch it. I’ll be talking about some spoilers later on in this review and this is one movie I definitely don’t want to spoil. Have fun.
You’re back? Or you just read through all that for nothing and you’re wanting me to get to it already? Alright, let’s begin.
The plot of Battle Royale is that in the fictional facist version of 1997 Japan, the country falls into a major recession that makes the people lose hope and the youth unruly and violent. The government then creates the BR Act in order to help control the younger generation. A random class from a random school is picked and the students are all forced to kill each other off on a secluded island. The winner gets to go home and receives national fame and media coverage for their achievement.
This movie mainly focuses on the characters of Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa who are classmates in class 3-B. Shuya is trying to cope with the death of his father who committed suicide recently. Noriko is the only student still attending her teacher Kitano’s class after most of the students have decided to forsake the school system. After one student stabs Kitano in the leg, he decides to resign. All of these events are key indicators as to how these characters will behave throughout the rest of the movie. One year later, the entirety of the class all gets together to go on a school field trip. Before the trip, Shuya’s best friend Yoshitoki Kuninobu reveals to him that he has a crush on Noriko and he hopes that they can go out together. On the bus, Noriko, Shuya, and Yoshitoki all take a photo together but Shuya’s friend has been cropped out of the photo from the neck up. (*cue intense foreshadowing*)
Suddenly, the scene cuts and Shuya is waking up to the sleeping bodies of everyone around him. But that scene ends rather quickly when a masked woman knocks him out cold before he truly can process what is happening around him. Shuya then wakes up again and is surrounded by his classmates in a classroom they’ve never seen before with collars they cannot remove around everybody’s necks. Kitano then walks in and informs everyone that their class has been selected to take part in a battle royale that will last three days and they all have to kill each other off until only survivor one remains. Some students try to protest this and they are killed to set an example. A girl is stabbed in the head by Kitano and Shuya’s friend Yoshitoki has his neck blown through by the collar around his neck. Then they are all given bags with a few supplies and a random weapon and ushered outside to kill each other. Shuya and Noriko quickly team up outside as Shuya vows to protect his best friends crush from harm. After this is when the story starts dishing out subplots left and right.
There’s Mitsuko Souma, a young girl with a traumatic past that’s just delighted to start killing people, the two students who were a part of the battle royale before and were brought back; Shogo Kawada and Kazuo Kiriyama, the four friends in the lighthouse, the boy with the tracking device; Hiroki Sugimura, the badass in the yellow tracksuit known as Takako Chigusa, the guys hacking the system and making a bomb, Kitano and his interactions with the guards, etc. This movie is literally just tons of subplots put together and can make it very confusing when you first watch it.
“But wait wasn’t she doing that?” Or “Wait they know each other?” were some of my first reactions to this movie. This movie also has a penchant for kicking your emotions in the face every five minutes. Because of the constant shifting from character to character, you get to know a little bit about them as it goes along which makes their deaths hit home just a little harder. This also backfires because sometimes they kill off characters that you know nothing about which makes their deaths seem pointless.
The main character Shuya is sadly, one of the least interesting characters in the film. We know he’s a bit of a slacker, a nice guy, and his father committed suicide. He’s a normal kid with a big heart that just doesn’t wanna kill anyone. Which is fine if he wasn’t blander than tofu. His personality is there but his presence is not. I understand that his role as the background guy is part of his character but the movie doesn’t really give him a good shining moment until the very end. I won't go too into his personality in the different versions of Battle Royale (being as there is a manga and light novel the movie is based upon), but I definitely say they took a lot of Shuya's edge away in this movie. The character of Noriko is a little bit better written within the movie and is basically the nicest girl on the planet. She’s a straight A student, cute as a button, and empathetic towards everyone even though she’s been bullied harshly by her fellow students. She feel's almost manipulative when others protect her as she is used to a lack of protection from her bullies. She doesn’t wish to cause harm to anyone and because of her genuine purity, the girls around her treat her viciously. Though Noriko is still more of the princess in peril trope, she does work well with the trope. Through the princess façade, there is a real girl put in the situation to be a savior when all she wants is one for herself.
Some of the more interesting characters in the story are the side characters. Takako Chigusa's story is very interesting and her few moments are very iconic. In just a few scenes - you know who Takako is and what she is about. Level headed, independent, and vulnerable are the feelings she exudes and does so with passion. Mitsuko Souma's story is sad and disturbing and makes you feel bad for a girl who takes pleasure in ending other's lives. The main villain Kitano is very layered and is shown as a broken man who was pushed over the edge by his wife and daughter who hate him, his students who ignore him and attacked him, and his unfulfilling life devoid of anything hopeful in sight. The only person who seems to have ever shown him kindness was Noriko and in return he ends up manipulating the game in her favor. The depression of Kitano and his eventual demise are two things that really give the ending such an impact.
Battle Royale has a good score and amazing cinematography. It has aged a bit since its release but still manages to feel grounded despite that. Some scenes are absolutely stunning to look at and others are painfully obvious that they need a little tweaking after 20+ years of film effects advancement. It has good practical effects for its kills and some of the more gore ridden scenes are wonderful such as the warehouse scene, the lighthouse shootout, or sickle betrayal scene.
This movie is a bit cluttered and definitely flawed but it makes up for that with its emotional impact and thrilling story. It juggles its plot points well and feels like you are watching pure emotion blast across the screen. It has scenes that display the Japanese despair of the economic recession of its time and acts as a commentary on violence, youth, and how simple acts of kindness are what is needed to keep us all together. It’s a good movie and comes highly recommended.
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