Battle Royale(2002)
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Masanobu Ando, Takeshi Kitano
Genre: Action/Satire
Running Time: 115mins

Rating:

In the future the rise of crime in Japan increases daily, at 15% unemployment, the adults fearing the wayward violent nature of its youth passed a government act. The BR Act (Battle Royale). This act, aimed at controlling the violence in schools and reinstating the discipline of the past, resorted to an impartial lottery system selecting a single class from all of Japans high schools. On the basis of this selection, the class is taken to a remote island, implanted with a pulse monitor and given provisions to last 3 days. Food, water, a map, a compass, and finally a weapon.

The purpose of their stay is to survive the Battle Royale, forced beyond their control to kill off each of their classmates to ensure that they will be the last alive. And if, after three days there is more than one contestant alive?

Everyone dies.

Battle Royale marked the return of Kinji Fukasaku as an Internationally respected director. A veteran director of 60 films, Battle Royal being his 60th, Fukasaku has crafted a film that is brutal, shocking, satirical and at time hilarious. The premise is enough to give parents a nervous breakdown, the actual making of the film was enough to send the Japanese censors into disarray.

It's fair to say that when Battle Royale arrived on UK soil that it had brought with it a considerable amount of baggage, in post-Columbine America it was never released. And so, with all the bad publicity surrounding it - it was inevitable that it would attract a huge crowd. But few could have expected the film to have been as good as it was. For those uninitiated there must have been expectations of just another gorefest, for those of us with a hindsight into both the storyline and the cast and crew involved - expectations were at boiling point. I was in the latter camp - waiting patiently for its release, my own imagination spiraling out of control from just a few screen shots and a brief synopsis.

And then the film started.

I have always been impressed with Battle Royale - it is technically a very good film, it does address the issues of social problems, and miscommunication but there are, as with all films, those few niggling errors that rear their ugly head to be seen above the successes of the film. The opening thirty minutes in which our leads are established, and the plot for the remainder of the film is defined, is a great example for Fukasaku's sure-handed direction. Striking the perfect balance between realism and surrealism, the events that unfold are both believable and outrageous. A perfect example is the moment where Kitano hurls that knife across the room. It's a ridiculous scene : "I said no whispering!". But it manages to eschew feelings of fear, intensity, and seriousness while at the same time being possibly one of the funniest scenes in the film. This is where Battle Royale shines - in it's ability to encapsulate a multitude of different atmospheres and reactions all contained within one event.

It may be hard to believe from the premise, but there is a lot of humour to be found in Fukasaku's film. Somewhat expectedly, it comes more often than not in the form of Kitano's deadpan performance as the children's teacher - aptly named Kitano. Fukasaku has clearly given Kitano the freedom to apply his own brand of humour to the proceedings, the body movement, the stubborn child-like reactions are associated so well with Kitano's unique approach to comedy. But in addition to this physical comedy is the excesses with which the unlucky classmates meet their fate. Whether you laugh or wince the emphasis is on the sensationalist ways that each will die, some will sit on the fence, otherwise will opt for the serious concerned approach, and then others will be chuckling. But there can be no moral judgement passed on how you view Battle Royale, because all three reactions are the correct reactions. Fukasaku's film is open to interpretation, and for that reason it deserves a place in the contemporary classics of Japanese cinema - for it's richness and vitality.

Where it fails however, is in it's repetitious nature once the tide has fallen and Fukasaku realizes that he has over 40 students to kill off before he can reach his climax. This is the biggest fault in Battle Royale. There are stand out scenes which help to prevent the boredom from seeping in (most notably the lighthouse scene, and the human grenade) but there is still that feeling, once these incredible set pieces come to a close that you will have to sift through a number of mediocre take-it-or-leave-it scenes before you come to another gem.

The performances from the young cast are efficiently handled, you're never left in any doubt that they are indeed in the situation that the film has presented to them. The script sparkles with intentionally melodramatic dialogue which highlights perfectly the nature of selection between the children. The choice over who will live and who will die seemingly boiling down to their limited experience of friendship, superficial or otherwise.

Somewhere amidst the chaotic savage violence, teen melodrama, and black comedy Fukasaku gets lost - the fact is that with a cast of 40 children, characterization has to go out the window. The fact that Kitano's character presents the most intriguing of the film, is no surprise as the children effectively act as fodder to the spectacle of it all. You have your good guys and you have your bad guys, in the directors cut there is an interesting side story to add more weight to the seemingly psychotic bad girl Mistuko, but outside of this ambiguity, the characters are pretty clear cut and easy to categorize.

Overall, Battle Royale is genuinely a great film for entertainment value, however, it is too flawed to be seriously considered as the message film that Fukasaku would have us believe. Hidden beneath the excesses is a commentary about the ever increasing gap between generations, and you could argue that it is also an allegory for Fukasaku's distrust of the feudal system during his own tormented experiences of WW2. But this commentary is well hidden, blocked from sight by the blood and drowned out by the sound of gunfire. Expectation it seems was my biggest failing for Battle Royale - expectation for the perfect melding of satire and controversy, for the story to take on board the many possible avenues it could have - unfortunately it fell just short of the mark, settling for action when it should have opted for exploration.