Battle Royale on DVD (2000)

RJTaylor from London , 22/08/2005

Battle Royale = The Running Man + Lord of the Flies. In Japan.

Every year a class of schoolkids is chosen at random, landed on an island and told to get on with killing one another until there's only one of them left. Want to team up? Fine, but if at the end of three days there's more than one of you alive you all die by way of a personal exploding collar.

I liked this film. I liked the basic premise, the story, the occasional red fountain, and the interesting non-glitzy way that human relationships are portrayed under one of the most immense (albeit far-fetched) pressures imaginable. On more than one occasion I found my mind stretching back to my schooldays and how I would have dealt with some of my classmates if I'd have found myself in this situation; lucky for a few of them that this is just a movie!

BR has two main flaws. Firstly, much of the action is in the dark, so scenes that were probably perfectly visible in a cinema are just stretches of black with glints of light and a soundtrack when viewed on a TV screen.

Secondly, the film starts off with too many characters. (42 classmates in all.) It's never quite obvious which of them you're supposed to be following, and as a result gets a little bit jumbled. Credit is due to the writer/s for bestowing personalities upon their cannon fodder, but once you've seen one profession and painful rejection of unrequited adolescent love, that's enough to get the gist: After three or four times, what was once sweet quickly becomes cloying.

I haven't read it, but I'd guess that this wealth of characters is a symptom of the film being faithful to the book it is based on. But there simply isn't enough room in a movie like this for so many players.

That said, just go with the flow and it soon straightens out. You'll enjoy BR much more if you don't try to concentrate too hard on where everyone is at any given moment.

Well acted and well shot, ('scuse the pun,) BR is a movie that any fan of Asian cinema should see. However, I don't think there's enough here to coax your average moviegoing subtitle-o-phobe to sit down and concentrate for 109 minutes.

  63 out of 70 people found this review helpful

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bobbyyy from Teesside , 11/11/2003

This film hits you a lot harder than most Hollywood films ever could, this group of youths are told outright that only one of them can live through this ordeal, straight to the point and dosen't worm around any of the details both graphically and emotionally. This film will leave you wondering how you ever missed this genre of horror movies before. Excellent plot and execution of it, and leaves a scary question about human nature itself.

  17 out of 18 people found this review helpful

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peter139 from cheshire , 01/05/2004

This is the third time I've watched this film and it won't be the last. The idea of kids having to slaughter one another to teach them respect for adults seems more than a little odd but get past that and you have a film that works on many levels.

Entertaining action, gore, romance ('ish or is it an honourable platonic protector type thing because he promised?), honour, character development - all here in spades.

Now the problem - we have to stop Hollywood from ruining this by a producing a big budget remake staring Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta Jones. Please sign here...

  16 out of 16 people found this review helpful

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steve from Didsbury , 04/10/2004

This film was banned in loads of places. It's really just a slightly less intelligent, but infinitely more gory version of Lord of the Flies.

Japanese school kids are stuck on an island with weapons from pan lids to uzis and its last man standing. Basically some kids take to the killing thing quite happily (there is even one volunteer), some refuse to be a part of it, some go it alone and some form teams.

One noce bit is the cutsie instruction video which tells them the rules.

Watch out if you get the pan lid and I get the uzi....

  12 out of 12 people found this review helpful

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Mashrur from Sunderland, England , 04/10/2006

The concept of the film, which I read in the editorial review, [the story- before watching], seemed full of promises to me. Well, many people could come up with this kind of fictitious, superficial and ambitious concept, but making it impressive? not an easy job, and personally I dont believe this director was capable either! in japanease movies, there is a tendency to show some ultra-crueltry to terrorize the audience, this film was another example of that type. Shame, it is the same country which produced Kurosawa, Ozu or Mijoguchi.

  2 out of 3 people found this review helpful

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DirtyHarry from HARROGATE [Highly rated reviewer] , 27/08/2004

I'll keep this short - watch this movie - great idea brought to the screen and you simply can't get better than this. And as the man said it explores all levels of human relationships and shows us all our strengths and weaknesses - not for the faint-hearted though!

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

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