Battle Royale (2000), renowned director Kinji Fukusaku's last completed film, will be shown in Los Angeles from December 24th, 2011 through January 2nd, 2012. (Fukusaku died during filming of the sequel, which was completed by his son Kenta and released in 2003.)
Based on the 500+ page novel by Koushun Takami, which was published in 1999 and later made into a manga series by Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi, the film depicts a group of ninth graders who are transported by authorities to a remote island where they are tasked to kill one another until only one remains. Because of the subject matter, the film was very controversial in Japan and has had few screenings in the U.S., although it has been available as a Region 1 DVD for several years.
The film might be considered a cross between The Most Dangerous Game and Lord of the Flies. It most definitely is a pre-cursor to the The Hunger Games, at least from all I've read about the book and and seen about the upcoming film (or perhaps that should be "films").
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| "Beat" Takeshi Kitano explains the rules of the Battle Royale. |
Battle Royale was first shown in North America as a co-presentation of Japan Society and the New York Asian Film Festival this past summer, one of the films included in Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema. This was billed as a "celebratory" screening because the film could not properly be considered "contemporary," the other thirty+ films in the festival all being from 2010 or 2011.
Now some lucky Angenlinos will have the opportunity to see it this holiday season. And some will be very lucky indeed, since four lucky winners of a contest sponsored by VCinema will get free tickets!
Information about the film, the screening schedule and the contest is available at VCinema.
Battle Royale is based on the shockwave novel by Koushun Takami, which is a bestseller in Japan, and which has become very controversial in a very short time (and it is really easy to understand why). The plot is relatively simple (a class of junior high school students are forced to kill each other on a desert island, the last survivor wins and can go back home), but it is this simplicity that makes its strength. No need for a very long prologue before we enter the main act. Each of the 42 pupils involved in this "game" are not volunteers (no one would be..,), and of course they are forced to kill their best friends /girlfriends in order to survive this horror. The personalities and characteristics of each of the participants are of course very contrasted and even if there are some cliches, well, the worst has been avoided. There are even quite "realistic" (even if it is very difficult to judge what can be realistic with such a plot) moments. The transcription of the inner thoughts of the characters, which is one of the strengths of the book, is averagely well retranscripted. Takeshi Kitano plays a "teacher" (whose name is ...Kitano), leading the operation of surveilliance of this "game". It is very difficult to give an objective comment on this movie. Violent. Ultra-Violent. And bloody. This is for sure. The book has to be read for a more complete description of the hesitations and fears, but the movie restranscripts very well the book is the sense that it is all "absurd". There is no real meaning to this violence. The students know this, but it can not be avoided. consulta medico pediatra medico doctor dermatologo veterinario veterinario psychologist consulta abogado abogado abogado abogado abogado psicologo doctor psicologo abogado abogado It is quite sad that the movie dropped an essential background element of the book (the story in the book takes place in an imaginery Japan which would have not lost WWII, and the movie takes place in a slightly modified modern Japan), but I guess that making this happen in the "real-world" shows that there is no need to go to an imaginary world to see to what extreme behaviors humans are capable of.
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