Batoru rowaiaru
Tags: dark, cruelty, murder, cult, violence, flashback, good versus evil, psychedelic, satire, romantic, tragedy, revenge, storytelling

Plot synopsis:
The story opens with a frantic news broadcast about a young girl being brought back to mainland Japan after she wins the latest "Battle Royale", a contest that pits high school students against each other in a fight to the death on a remote island. While being filmed, the girl smiles.Shuya Nanahara, a Japanese middle school student, attempts to cope with life after his father's suicide by hanging. Meanwhile, schoolmate Noriko Nakagawa is the only student attending class -- 3-B. Their teacher, Kitano, quietly leaves upon her tardy, apologetic arrival, but is attacked by student Yoshitoki Kuninobu and resigns after recovering from his wound.One year later, class 3-B takes a field trip after completing their compulsory studies; however, the class is gassed on their bus. They wake up in a "briefing room" on a remote island, wearing strange electronic collars. Kitano explains that the class has been chosen to participate in this year's Battle Royale as a result of the BR Act, which was passed after 800,000 students walked out of school. The orientation video cheerfully instructs the class to kill each other for three days until only one student remains. Students resistant to their rules or entering one of the randomly placed "death zones" for each day are to be killed by the collar's detonation. One of the 42 students, Fumiyo Fujiyoshi, interferes with the video by whispering to her friends; Kitano kills her on the spot with a thrown knife. While a shocked class is subdued by soldiers, Kuninobu openly confronts the viciousness of Kitano and the teacher slashes him with a knife (in the back of leg - the same area Kuninobu attacked Kitano two years earlier) before detonating his collar while Shuya, his best friend, watches in horror. Each student is provided a bag of food and water, map of the island, compass, and one item containing either a lethal weapon (firearm, kama (sickle), knife, potassium cyanide) or an item apparently worthless toward survival (paper fan, binoculars, coat hanger, saucepan lid). The weapons are supposed to eliminate any natural advantage any one student might have over the others.The program's first six hours see twelve deaths, four of which are suicides. Brazen, mute "exchange student" Kazuo Kiriyama and quietly deranged classmate Mitsuko Souma soon become the most dangerous players in the game, while another exchange student, Shogo Kawada seems somewhat more merciful. Shuya promises to keep Noriko safe for Kuninobu because he was in love with her, but never told her. Other students have various goals in the game: Shinji Mimura and his friends plot to hack into the military's computer systems and destroy their base of operations; Hiroki Sugimura searches for his best friend Takako Chigusa and his love interest Kayoko Kotohiki. Chigusa runs into Kazushi Niida, who is sexually obsessed with her; Chigusa kills him after he attempts forcing himself on her, but is herself killed by Mitsuko. Kawada teams with Shuya and Noriko, and reveals that he won a previous Battle Royale at the cost of his girlfriend, Keiko; he now swears vengeance. The trio are forced to separate when Kiriyama attacks, and Sugimura rescues Shuya, assisted by his assigned "weapon," a GPS tracking device.Shuya awakens bandaged by Yukie Utsumi in the island's lighthouse, where she helps reorient him to the events of the past 14 hours; five other girls on the school's cheerleading squad have also been guarding and hiding out in the building, apparently since the beginning of the program. Utsumi gathers the girls around the dining table to weigh in on a possible method of escape from the island which Shuya has informed her of. Yuko Sakaki, thinking that Shuya murdered a friend of hers, attempts to poison Shuya's food, but it is inadvertently eaten by one of the girls, killing her and sparking a massive, fear-fueled gunfight resulting in all the girls' deaths -- except Yuko. She realises the enormity of her paranoia and commits suicide, jumping from the deck of the lighthouse.Shuya returns to Noriko and Kawada, and they set out to find Mimura's group. To a small warehouse, Sugimura tracks down Kotohiki, who panics and kills him shortly after; Sugimura professes his love before dying. Kotohiki cries in despair, and is found and killed by Mitsuko. Watching from the rafters, Kiriyama then guns down and kills Mitsuko after she sadly dispenses some fitting advice to her two (dead) classmates.Upon the rapidly-consecutive deaths of Sugimura, Kotohiki and Souma, all of the seven students remaining are either preparing or willing to completely subvert the operations of the "game" - save for the psychopathic Kazuo. "The Third Man", a hacker group consisting of Mimura, Iijima and Yutaka, successfully infiltrate the military's computer system and prepare to destroy the perimeter using a truck converted into a fire-bomb. However, at the last second they are found by Kiriyama, who kills them all, but one of them manages to detonate the truck, seriously injuring the killer. When Kawada, Noriko and Shuya arrive at the hackers' burning base, Kawada confronts and kills the shrapnel-blinded, Uzi-armed Kiriyama with his SPAS-12 shotgun.On the morning of the final day, Kawada, aware of the collars' internal microphones, takes Shuya and Noriko aside and fakes their deaths. Suspecting that Kawada has won through manipulation of the BR system, Kitano ends the game and dismisses the troops before establishing final protocol, intent on personally killing the young man. Kitano realizes that Kawada, and not Mimura, has hacked into the game's intranet system months beforehand, and has now disabled Shuya and Noriko's tracking devices. Kitano unveils a homemade painting of the dead students, with Noriko indicated as the winner. He reveals that he was unable to bear the mutual hatred between him and his students, having been rejected by his daughter, Shiori. He also confesses that he always thought of Noriko as a daughter. He asks the confused, reluctant Noriko to kill him, but is quickly shot by Shuya after he threatens her at gunpoint. As he falls, Kitano shoots, and it is shown that the weapon in his hand was a mere water-gun. Suddenly, his phone rings, and Kitano sits down to answer it, telling Shiori that "if you hate someone, you take the consequences" before finally dying. Shuya, Noriko and Kawada leave the island on a boat, but Kawada dies from injuries sustained in his gunfight with Kiriyama -- "glad" that in the end, he "found true friends."Shuya and Noriko are declared fugitive murderers, and last seen on the run in the direction of Tokyo's Shibuya train station.

Review: Adults and children alike read comics by the droves, and sometimes pops up a strange, not-too-well-hidden undercurrent of pedophilia.This movie takes the heavily cliquish, often childish, and often incomprehensible (to me) social system of young Japanese boys and girls and gives them guns.
From a frustrated and humiliated teacher; to students killing each other over seemingly unimportant squabbles; to the overly-cutesy, peppy training video that perfectly mimics nearly any show on NHK these days -- this film subtly and brilliantly comments on half-a-dozen issues that weigh heavily on the minds of Japanese people today.
What it is, is a commentary about "perceived" (real or otherwise) problems among Japanese teens in the late 90's.In one review, someone basically likened it to a movie involving young Japanese girls running around in school uniforms acting violent....DUH, thats the whole point.
Yet it was a film that the US mainstream could never have conceived making.Firstly to get it out of the way I will say that I loved this movie, although at no point did I feel comfortable while watching it.
For those that don't know, the film focuses on what happens when a group of high school students are sent to an abandoned island to kill each other.
The Battle Royale Act annually sends a randomly-selected class of high school students to an uninhabited island where they are compelled to kill each other until only one of their number survives.The reasoning behind this bizarre piece of legislation is perhaps the weakest part of the plot - but the Director deftly causes us to suspend disbelief by drawing us surely and touchingly into the feelings of the young cast.
Unlike many western movies which trot out a body count of simplistic characters who are only there to die horribly for our entertainment, Battle Royale somehow manages to rapidly introduce us to the story's potential victims and make us care about them.You will read reviews that describe this film as excessively violent.
I watch this film just saying, "this is what would happen." That is what the entire film is based on, the crazy idea of 'this could happen.' The whole tag line of the movie is, "could you kill your best friend?" The question is so spooky, I don't even know if I could answer it.
"Battle Royale" is one of the most controversial and challenging movies ever made.The film is very gory and violent,but it's also witty,satirical and thought provoking.The concept of "Battle Royale" is pretty simple.The act of Battle Royale decrees that once a year a class of 9th graders is chosen at random,stranded on a small island,and armed with random weapons.The kids are also outfitted with strange necklaces that monitor their locations and life functions,and explode if more than one student is alive at the end of 72 hours.The kids are forced to become savage killers,and the movie provides them with interesting personalities and human reactions to the horrible situation in which they find themselves.The acting is brilliant and the violence is horrific and merciless.The film is very exciting and well-photographed.A masterpiece that needs to be seen by every fan of wonderful Japanese cinema!.
All students are forced to wear a metal collar with a radar so that their teacher is aware when a rule is being broken.The film is set in Japan and is in Japanese (and if you do come across a dubbed version, dispose of it immediately because it's only worth it to watch the original).
But putting those two aside, the acting WAS splendid, just as the directing of (sci-fi/Japanese gangster movie director) Kinji Fukasaku was.I thought that the story was very haunting and compelling, and that you should read the novel or the comic book before watching the movie because just the use of your imagination and attachment to the characters while reading the books is so much more real.
Usually the humor from Japanese movies can escape me, but I liked the humor here quite a bit, at least until the action and killing started.The premise of the movie is that, due to escalating violence in schools, a law is passed which allows the military, or some kind of militia, to take one troubled class and turn them all loose on an island with the object of killing each other until one is standing.
Go figure.Even if killing 40, random students out of 800.000, rewarding the most violent and traitorous of them could have some deterrent affect on the rest of the student population  first they had to know about it and every single student in that class seamed surprised to hear of this BRact (bet you next time they'll read the fine print in their registration form).Technically the film is not so bad, very good photography, competent music and sound track, good editing to.
There is a mix of actors ranging from the very good to the "thank God he died so I don't have to see his acting again).Despite the actors effort the characters are poor, with 1 or to exceptions we know nothing about them, what makes them run  or fight  or just scream scared.In short if you are looking for a gore/slash movie and you have nothing better to do go for it.
it would be inconceivable to show this to the age group that the film actually deals with...one needs to view this movie (armed as it is with some arresting shots and provocative ideas) with the question: what is it trying to say once the plot of the story has been established?...
The first ten minutes is kind of cool and does a decent job (or rather not) of setting up what unfortunately turns into the most baffling mess of a movie I've possibly ever seen.A bunch of annoying brats with 30 second characters (theres like 100 of em) let loose and run around babbling about nothing while acting scared.
As for bad violent movies, like Battle Royale, I guess I have seen enough of them (hasn't everyone?) to be able to sit through two hours of teenage slaughter without being touched at all.
It was a good story, with great characters and great writing that gave a lot of psychological insight on the characters.Based on how popular and loved this movie is, I was expecting it to be a great adaptation but after watching it, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with it all.
There are also several changes in the motivation of some characters and the whole concept of battle royale shifts from an oppressive government to some sort of "adult vs kids" thing which, despite the fact that I'm aware of the problems japan has with the youth, doesen't make a whole lot of sense-Anyway, not a bad movie.
I enjoy gallows humor, but it doesn't feel appropriate here, no matter how ridiculous the situation may be, and most importantly because the rest of the film is taken very damn seriously.Equal parts disturbing and viscerally thrilling, Battle Royale doesn't offer anything in the way of good, clean fun.
After 15 min you can guess the rest.In fact, after the Battle Royale concept has been presented, the whole film is just a long series of killings and screen updates like "6 AM 2 dead - 34 to go" 3) The acting is not convincing.
I have absolutely no problem with films portraying violence- watch a genuine slasher or horror movie they're far more entertaining.
The description showed good potential, reminding me of works like 'Das Experiment' and 'Lord of the flies'.Sadly, the film turned out to be utterly disappointing: the violence is there just to shock as many people, the 'scenario' is almost non-existent and shows some impossibilities (the IMDB guidelines advise me not to say which, but it won't be hard to find out yourself) and the acting is totally over the top - Takeshi Kitano being one of the very few exceptions.For me, most of the time, giving opinions on the IMDB stops at rating the film.
In fairness to the book, I have not read it and I may well try to find it now because I imagine that the satire is more evident there than here and those that hold up this film as 'one of the best satires' they have seen have, well, have simply not seen enough satire.That said, the situation (well founded or not) is still good enough to set up a good thriller/horror movie.
It is not a good ending (although the final few moments are better than the 15 before them) and it is further evidence that the film is not as intelligent as it would like to be.The cast are roundly good and all are believable school children  it is easy to see this made in America with a 'teenage' cast of people in their twenties who look 17 at best!
Beat Takeshi was a great bit of casting and he makes a good character even if the film only uses him well in the early scene where he welcomes his class to the island where they will nearly all die.
A future Japanese fascist government has forged a new program for dangerous students,broadcasting live like a reality television movie .In this fictional universe,a class of junior-high school of 42 students is randomly selected and sent a bleak island during three days.There a former professor(Takeshi Kitano)rules a revolutionary survival game called Battle Royale.The abducted class are given a bag with different arms,a map and a few rations of food and tied a collar explodes when they break the rules.They're dispatched to the inhospitable island and sent off to murder each other into a survival game .Someone decide to play the game to death like the psycho assassin teen,while others commit suicide themselves and another are attempting to encounter a way out to get off the empty island where exist a special danger zones.The violent death match game originating an authentic body count to be continued until solely one single winner remain.The film contains action,thrills,rare black humour,blood and is plenty of graphical violence.Excellent action sequences with bloody attacks and violent and blistering fights.The movie displays strong exploitation elements with realistic battles and some characters aren't well defined or one-dimensional but the grisly violence is continuous .It turn out to be a blending about a teens group on abandoned island such as¨Lord of flies¨,the game to death from ¨Running man¨and the tyrannical control by the government of ¨1984¨.Takeshi Kitano or Beat Takeshi is an appropriate villainous teacher in a powerful performance,he's splendid as actor(Gohetto)as director or both(Hanna-Bi,Sonatine,Kikujiro,Brother,Zaitochi).Little known actors ,exception of Chaki Kuriyama(Azumi 2,Ju-on),she's especially famous for his role the teenager killer in ¨Kill Bill vol.
There is no discernible plot line, it suffers from clichéd direction, the acting is awful and the effects are as cheap looking as early-eighties straight to video horrors.The whole film is an excuse to show Japanese girls in really small skirts with the added bonus of having high-school children shoot at and kill each other.
no they decide to send them to an island to kill each other, there is no point.also the acting in the film is laughable, all the deaths in the film made me laugh like crazy as there is near to no character development behind each one, that means that instead of feeling for the character you just find it funny...also there is that feel of "infinite bullets" now this normally happens once or twice in every action film but in this one it happens all the time.all these small imperfections makes the movie fell very cheap and unrefined.
the point is...its not a very good movie.the only thing i did like was the ending i don't want to give it away so...i wont.however i would recommend seeing this film to see what all the hype is about.
Okay, the first 30 minutes are pretty freakin' sweet, I will admit, and I made a mental note when I was watching them..."the rest of this movie will either get extremely awesome or extremely disappointing." Sadly, the second one was true.Battle Royale was a brilliant concept, only so poorly written it hurt.
There's 1 similar element, the survive and kill or lose game, but the rest is a melodramatic piece of "pro" wrestling style action film with lots of teens in school uniforms.At best, you can say it's an interesting idea.
I'm personally sorry I watched Battle Royale at all, and I have watched "Men Behind the Sun" - with sadness at the worst atrocities war has ever known - but that was a very important documentary about something very few know much about.The reduction of modern society to a "King Rat Rules" social Darwinism MAY be seen as a some redeeming commentary on this film, but the forced abuse of c14 year old school children in this film just made me feel sick and severely depressed.I've also read and seen Lord of the Flies, but the comparison in terms of feeling is like one bee sting vs being covered with killer bees..
I know that it's hard to fit a 600 page book into 2 hours without losing some of the depth, but I just felt like this movie was about nothing more than all of the kids killing each other.
Well, I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with Japanese youth, I know for certain this because I traveled several times there.I have to reject this absurd line of argument showing teens as potential assassins whose biggest problems are crushes and gossips between them, becoming even more unreal when you are facing such a disturbing situation like encountering the death of your fellow classmates.In every alternative reality film there is a thin line: the plot has to be always plausible.
A great movie, though in Japanese (yes, you will need to read subtitles.), Battle Royale is amazingly done and realistic (in my opinion).
If you don't like blood and gore, it might not be for you, but even so, it's a great film that is also a beautiful social commentary on what it means to be an adult, to be a child, and to trust other people.Although, if you are into watching people get hacked apart and dying other various fun ways, you can just ignore all that stuff...
But there is a depth here; stabbings, suicides (of which Japan has one of the highest rates in the developed world) and the all-encumbering importance of high school are real elements of Japanese society.But there are one too many ridiculous notions in the film that ruin this depth: the internet access on the island, the cheap use of classical music to paint scenes, the one-dimensional characters and the way almost everyone gunned down, regardless of how many bullet wounds they receive, has enough energy for another bout of fury, or even to calmly make a phone call.
Not only that, but a political message is also present in a vague sort of way; in the beginning scene of the movie you are shown a crowd of reporters and people rushing to see the winner of the battle Royal, all eager to see who survived the 3 day long bloodshed; i thought that this showed the thirst for blood modern man has, the urge to witness violence.The director did a great job at keeping the violence low key (there's not a lot of major gore) but nonetheless capturing it in high intensity; most of the deaths in the movie are very emotional and some of them lightly disturbing.
Although some people may laugh or dislike the love stories that are sketched into the film, i thought they were actually touching in a lame Japanese sort of way (no offense to anybody that is Japanese, i simply meant that the vocabulary and choice of words made by the characters are not all entirely American sounding.) Another good aspect of the movie is that the acting is mostly genuine in my opinion, and plus all or most of the actors were actually high schoolers (give or take a couple of students and teachers/soldiers.) On a final note, i urge anybody who is interested in this movie to just WATCH IT and stop hating on it about it's plot, the plot is original, a tad bit over the top (which in my opinion is interesting when it comes to films), and influential.
Tellingly, the characters of Battle Royale have become disconnected from their parents, cast adrift in a world that they're ill-equipped to understand and as a result unable to cope with the pressures that their adult society has put upon them.Here, the allusions to Lord of the Flies are developed with the idea of children out of control, but contrasted further against the lurid, pulp sensationalism of a film like The Running Man (1987); in which the socio-political fears of the Japanese government are exploited by both the commercial corporations and the media into producing scandalous entertainment.
It's easy to dismiss this film as some kind of glorified school student snuff film, but look under the surface and the movie is rich in it's themes.Much like "Lord of the Flies", Battle Royale is a coming of age film where the veneer of civilized society is brushed away to reveal the dark heart of human nature.
If you've watched the movie and think that you've been shocked, seen a great vision on what humans are capable of in life and death situations, how far dictatorship can go, the expression in extreme of Japanese and generally Asian culture's current dangers/problems then READ THE BOOK and you'll find that half of it is missed in the movie..
And having said that, I must also add that the movie is a very poor remake of the book."Battle Royale" is about a class of teenagers who have to kill their classmates in order to survive.
So to people who like watching movies with killing and blood.