Dear Internet,
You will
note if you have quickly skimmed the rest of this entry that the logo is the
only image that I am posting for this review.
This is because "Battle Royale" is one of the bloodiest films
that I have come across. Not the most
graphic considering some parts that I will cover in a bit, but definitely one
of the bloodiest. The film cannot be
less graphic than it already is if it wants to tell the story and message it is
trying to convey. What is this terrible
story that requires a high level of grotesque actions to exist?
Some
time in the future of Japan, a massive depression hits the country with record
high unemployment. In reaction to this,
student protests erupted around the nation.
Fearing the youth, a law was passed which became known as the BR
Act. The BR Act creates a yearly
death-match game. A random middle school
class is chosen every year to be thrown onto an island. There, they are collared with electronic
monitoring devices. Every few hours, a
section of the island is marked as a danger zone. If the student is in one of these danger
zones, the collar explodes. If the student
acts against the people running the game, the collar explodes. If more than one person is alive at the end
of the three days, all the collars will explode. The last person alive will be set free, if
there is one. Every student is given a
random weapon that ranges anywhere from a cooking lid, a crossbow, a knife, to
a semi-automatic rifle. These are the
rules of the BR, the Battle Royale.
Well,
that is actually more the premise than the story in the film. The story follows a few select students that
participate in a specific yearly game and the former teacher that moderates it
with the help of armed personnel. I
could go into details about the various characters, but that would place too
much emphasis on specific ones. This in
turn would give away who finally wins the BR, and seeing as the film is a
suspenseful one that relies heavily upon the outcome of the game, I will try
and not talk about anyone specific. That
does not prevent me from talking about the former teacher, Kitano. Kitano had been the group's teacher before he
left because of being attacked by one of his students with a knife. He is a multi-layered character, but is also
somewhat a broken one. This comes from
the way that the game functions in the greater scheme, but I am again getting ahead
of myself for the second time in one entry.
Let me talk about that graphic stuff first.
The
film rarely holds back the plethora of ways that characters die off. Many students are killed by gunfire. There are a number of double-suicides, and
blood flows like stolen cash through a second world bank. The film is not meant to be seen by the squeamish
or the younger members of the audience.
That having been said, there is not much graphic stuff if you look
really close. Take the students that die
by gunfire. Not a single one had a
bullet wound anywhere they were shot.
After hundreds of hours of watching old western films/TV shows, it has
become second nature for me to look for bullet holes when someone gets
shot. In "Battle Royale,"
everyone only gets covered with blood.
One student, when being sliced in the back from a knife, tumbled forward
to show where he had been hurt. The
blood was not what struck me first, visually, but the lack of a tear in his
shirt. Many of the "graphic"
injuries that take part in the film are represented by these budget makeup tricks
that make the film actually less graphic that what it is trying to be. Sure, some people lose their heads, and
quite a number of the violent acts are reproducible in a real life setting, but
even a film like "Ichi the Killer" is more graphic despite being even
more cartoonish than this film. Is it
the fact that the violence is being done by and towards individuals below the
legal adult cutoff? If that is the case,
there needs to be a better reason.
The
film's violence is primarily being done towards and by minors, specifically 15
year-olds or so. While from a legal
point of view, they are seen as children, the film's nature throws this away
with the "point" of the game.
The reason that the film's antagonist, Kitano, gives to the students as
to why they are being forced to play the twisted game is that Japan has gotten
tired of its youth acting like spoiled children. From a lack of respect to the teachers,
skipping school, and even assaulting people, the youth of Japan are painted as delinquents
broadly. In the real world, there are
numerous problems with the Japanese educational system and the students that
have to go through it. A quick search of
Japanese female bullying can bring up stories and attitudes that will turn your
stomach even more than the film can. The
film, however, shows that the adults of the fictitious world shirk their own responsibilities
and blame the problems of the children on the children. It is the polar opposite extreme of the argument
"I am this way because of my parents" where the individual shirks the
blame higher up the family tree. The
adults of the film wash their hands of the responsibility of the children that
they must raise and care for. Take the
suicide of one of the character's parents. This is an obvious running away from
the responsibilities of everything in the specific character's life but most
importantly the raising of his child.
Then you can take the whole BR game as a whole. Instead of the government fixing the
unemployment problem or even addressing the problems of the educational system,
it decides that the children are not acting adult enough. It concocts a death-match game to scare the
students to keep going to school. The
final victor of each game is supposed to be the model individual by the logic
of the game. This only makes it seem that
the model Japanese adult is one that should kill the competition ruthlessly for
the sake of that one individual rather than aiding the group and working for
the betterment of the community. Then
again, that does sound like the typical Japanese businessman mentality.
But I
have digressed, again. The violence of
the film is no worse than the kind that is found in any other sort of violent
action film. The complete lack of visual
wounds makes the violence no worse than stage acting, with blood capsules
popping when a trick dagger "stabs" a person. I have seen animated films be more violent
than "Battle Royale," with the actions being directed at a much wider
age range. If one is suppose to be
outraged at the violence being done to and by kids, you cannot at the same time
sweep under the rug the real world problems that the film is trying to talk about
which stem greatly from the educational system.
Japan has got one of the most messed up educational systems in the
world. Between the excessive national
ranking exams and the emphasis on rote memorization rather than critical
thinking skills, it is a wonder that the country is still able to function with
the stress being placed squarely on the student. If you do not get into a top level college,
you are branded a failure with the stigma following you even to your job years
later. That is after you get into the prestigious
high school before that. The label of
failure is placed so much on an individual who does not meet the expectations
of this top percentile mentality that many people become shut-ins for years,
refusing to try interacting with the world.
The mentality that these individuals should just "grow up and get a
job" is the same kind that is directed to the students. While there is some truth to the fact that
one should take hold of one's life, the attitude that kids should just grow up
as quickly as possible and begin to fit a broken mold is lunatic in nature. They are the way they are because you molded
them that way. It reminds me of the lyrics
of the song "Institutionalized" which went like:
"How
can you say what my best interest is? What are you trying to say, I'm crazy?
When I went to your schools, I went to your churches,
I went to your institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'm crazy?"
When I went to your schools, I went to your churches,
I went to your institutional learning facilities?! So how can you say I'm crazy?"
You cannot blame the child without also blaming the
adult. Both are responsible, not one
without the other.
The
film is an obvious critique of the nature of Japanese upbringing where the
adult is barely an adult themselves and criticizes the child for being a child. However, the film does not make this critique
well because of how it handles the reason for the game. While on one hand, the fact that the Japanese
adult makes an outlandish decision to bring forth a death-match to shirk the
blame of how the youth are acting up and to attempt to discipline the youth is
a great way to showcase the real life manner that parents hide from their
responsibilities, it just does not come across as feasible in its explanation. The fact that a bigger uprising against the
government does not occur in response to an inhuman decision to bring back the gladiatorial
games and mix it together with a Communistic fear of the government is hard to
believe, but then again, there is a sequel that deals a bit like that. The film does little to nothing to present why
the game is the way it is. It would be understandable
if the true answer to the game was to not kill one another and that after three
days all the survivors were let go free.
The film does not go into detail as to why the government makes the
game. Is it supposed to make the student
populace obey? It cannot since the class
for the game is chosen at random according to the rules. It is supposed to show the populace that a
dog-eat-dog mentality is the best kind?
Surely not, since it would then be condoning wanton murder in the
streets. Is the government trying to
control the rest of the populace into fearing for the lives of their
children? This cannot be the case since
every adult, save one, thinks not for what is truly best for the children but
that they should be aiming for this messed-up ideology. The film just does a poor job in
rationalizing the reason for the BR game that it becomes a nagging bug in the
back of the mind. It continues to nag
for the whole film.
"Battle
Royale" is a good film that knows how to keep the audience on the edge of
their seat. You can think of it as
"Ten Little Indians" mixed with "The Orient Express." A group of people are confined to a single
place, and the mystery killer is everyone.
While it does try to tackle some modern problems of Japan, it does so ham-fisted
by concocting a game with broken motives.
It would have done a better job if it tackled the problems head on, rather
than going through a roundabout way. In
the end, it makes me want to pick up "Jisatsutou" which handled an
apathetic government better.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
P.S. Tomorrow is "Dodes'ka-den."
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