| BATTLE ROYALE |
| Year: 2001 Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto Region: 0 Price: �17.99 - �19.99 Director: Kinji Fukasaku Running Time: Chapters: 18 |
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| Set in a society where law and order have seemingly gone down the plughole, with kids boycotting school, teachers being viciously assaulted and the police fretting about how to control it all, the government in Japan introduce a new law, the B.R. Act (no, not British Rail, but making the kids wait for trains might have been punishment enough). No, the act is the Battle Royale Act, a bizarre and violent compeition in which a randomly selected class are send to a deserted island in the middle of nowhere to fight to the death until one remains. The objective of this is to teach the kids some respect for their elders, and it seems to work. After all, dead kids can't answer back, can they? This film does seem a little far fetched in places, the very introduction of a law where kids can kill each other seems a bit over the top, but for sheer entertainment and escapism value, watching forty Japanese schoolkids murder each other is great fun. As each teenager is knocked off, a video game style counter appears to let the viewer know how many are dead and how many are left. During the game, which lasts three days and nights, two sweetheats vow to protect each other and end up getting friendly with the winner of a previous Battle Royale. Elsewhere, friendships are forged and dashed, as each classmate reacts to the frightening situation they have been put in by their old teacher, who just so happens to be in charge of the "game". A thought provoking, bloody piece of controversial Japanese cinema (unsurprisingly after the USA school gun massacre, the US film classification board washed it's hands of the whole thing) this is one film you're not going to forget in a while. |
| EXTRA FEATURES Unfortunately not many. Unless film notes and some pretty indepth actor biographies are your thing (which isn't many people's thing). The animated menu is quite funny, but there's nothing apart from the film and some pretty damn annoying burnt in (i.e. automatic) English subtitles (which sometimes are unreadable against white backgrounds) for you. |
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