Battle Royale (NR)

To celebrate the month of all things scary, everyone at The Movie Buff is doing horror film reviews. This is a problem for me as I act like a big girl’s blouse whenever I encounter anything remotely scary. That got me thinking. I am growing up in the era where horror movies are really just jump-scare after jump-scare. This is all well and good but it doesn’t make much of a story or great characters. It ends up being a quick cash cow and move on to whatever is next to make big at the box office. Horror isn’t necessarily cheap scares for two hours and then go home… it can simmer for the whole movie finally imploding into a cavalcade of closer to home scares.

The other option is to go all-out blood and gore to the point of self-parody. In the case of “Battle Royale,” you’re also allowed to have a bittersweet ending as opposed to “and everyone lived happily ever after” or “the entire family is dead including their dog, neighbour and great-aunt.” Those tend to be the options to go with for the run of the mill brain dead horror movie. However, if you want a pretty scary movie that will actually make you think, Kinji Fukasaku presents, “Battle Royale.”

I could sum up the plot of “Battle Royale” in one way – “The Hunger Games” with way more blood, characters that are at least kind of interesting (even if I don’t care about most of them), and a plot that doesn’t put me to sleep. In dystopian Japan, over population and teenagers going insane and murdering everyone have become the major issues. The Japanese government’s solution to this is The Battle Royale Act. The idea is simple, pick a class from any school in the country and have the students of said class fight to the death on a remote island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. They can’t escape because they have explosive strapped around their necks that will go off if they try; also if they tamper with the device, if they are in specific danger zones of the island at the wrong time, or if after about three days more than one person is still breathing, they all blow up. They present this rather bluntly with a cheerful women on the TV explaining how the students watching might die. That is pretty much the gist of the film, a surreal yet terrifying experience. If you’ve ever watched “A Clockwork Orange,” then you will know the feeling.

I mention “A Clockwork Orange” because of the similarity between the two. In fact, there is a fairly clear Kubrickian influencecasting a shadow over the whole movie. From the constant use of classical music forcing a calm tinge on an otherwise tense moment, to the dynamic shots that put you as a viewer in the position of a psychopath. In this case it’s a teenager with an Uzi instead of HAL 9000. That feeling of discomfort is what makes this movie terrifying to me. In the first half hour, there is a scene where a teenager wielding a gun attacks Nanahara, one of the main characters. He emerges from the bushes reciting the formula to find the x values of a quadratic equation. This is a 7^th grader going completely insane and trying to kill a classmate. The fear comes in that one of them has to die. No one is there to help except Nanahara’s love interest Nakagawa. The problem being she is frozen in fear behind the bushes. Another boy enters the fray with a hatchet and everything becomes a bit hard to follow; I’ll get into that problem later.

Despite the messiness of it, it does provide great tension and really sets the tone perfectly for the rest of the film. There is one scene in “Battle Royale” that really stands out to me as being possibly, the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been watching a film. I shall refer to it as “The Lighthouse Scene” for lack of a better term.  “The Lighthouse Scene” is a variant on the prisoner’s dilemma. There are five girls who have survived thus far. They seem to trust each other enough to sleep in the same house. They are eating the meals they just prepared and one of them spews blood and dies. Right on the table. Immediately, this makes for an uncomfortable atmosphere as an audience member. The girls suddenly start to turn on each other. Within about two minutes there are gunfights that would make Quentin Tarantino proud all in the claustrophobic space of the lighthouse kitchen. This scene is so hard to watch because just a minute ago these girls were friendly and chatty to each other. It shows the true side of human nature. When confronted with life or death, you will show your true self. Oddly enough, the only one who survived is the one who didn’t do anything.

While this scene proves the dark side of human nature is always evident, it’s also a decent example of game theory. On a serious note, this idea of something so dark being presented in a lighthearted way is present throughout the film. Keiko’s smile as she died, Kiriyama doing all of it for fun, the group attacking Kiriyama at the start of the film thinking it’s going to be like a gangster movie and just acting tough instead of actually doing something. All of these incidents where followed by something incredibly painful to one of the characters. However, the issue then presents itself: why should I care?

The main problem I had with this film is, I couldn’t give a damn about the characters. I could give you a list of the characters Iactually care about pretty quickly; Nanahara, Nakagawa, Kawada, Kitano, and Kiriyama. The rest mean next to nothing to me. Don’t get me wrong; these characters are very interesting as far as their motives go. That doesn’t excuse the fact that the other forty or so people in the battle all die awesome “Sam Raimi” death scenes, but a death scene is just gore-porn if the characters mean nothing. Being able to see through Kiriyama’s POV while he’s gunning down someone was a very innovative angle but the character he was gunning down was just a watered down version of himself. While it is only one problem I had with the film, it’s a pretty huge problem. It doesn’t ruin it for me, but it does leave a nasty taste after such a brilliant concept.

I guess what “Battle Royale” boils down to is a thinking man’s “The Hunger Games,” or a psychotic man’s “The Hunger Games” – take your pick. The film is an enjoyable experience that leaves you a lot to ponder.

– by Paul O’Connor