Dancing Mad About Movies: Battle Royale

Asian cinema has really come a long way throughout the years, Japan being the forefront of a lot of the classic films. Indeed there’s a lot of influential directors from Japan, most notably Akira Kurosawa. Ahh yes, Kurosawa, arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time. But, as brilliant as he was he got shafted by a lot of studios for either his directing style or him demanding too much money or getting no work done after 2 years. Which is the case for the critically acclaimed film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” Which was turned over to two Japanese directors: Toshio Masuda and Kinji Fukasaku, the latter of which we will examine very soon.

But over the recent years, Japan’s cinema has taken a turn from dramatized stories involving Samurai or political pieces about the dangers of nuclear weapons to a darker focus, a focus on the horror genre. Now, the horror in Japanese cinema isn’t about a massive unstoppable behemoth murdering baby sitters or a cheap scare as we find in so many films turned out by Hollywood that are, frankly as “scary” as someone turning the lights on and off continuously. It’s annoying. J-Horror is really about atmosphere and making the experience as much as a psychological mindfuck as possible. The intent is to lure people in a submissive state and give them a barrage of tension with liberal use of disturbing imagery. Survival horror games like Silent Hill or Fatal Frame thrive on this. Indeed it’s just as affective in one media as it is in another. Particularly and especially in film. Hence why Japan was the pinnacle of Horror for a long time, but like all things, artists have to change their style and many people ended up becoming disillusioned with this style of horror. People got used to it and found J-Horror well, not very “horrific” anymore. However, those earlier films did find a place in cult following and indeed in cinema history. One of these films is “Battle Royale” which has not only become a pinnacle of horror to many people, but has become so critically acclaimed by many film buffs and even hit-making directors such as Quentin Tarantino. But I found a myriad of problems with the film personally. And you’re all fortunate to know how I go Dancing Mad over “Battle Royale.”


Before I start laying into the film, picking out what I liked and what ruined the experience for me we have to give the back story behind the film in question.

Battle Royale was initially a novel by Koushun Tamaki and takes place in a dystopian alternate timeline where many nations have fallen into economic turmoil and where Japan has basically falling into a Nationalist Socialist state where martial law has run rapid and where the people are entirely apathetic about the effects of a bad economy, including a bad job market. Yeah, I haven’t read the novel, although I did read the manga adaptation and well…



Yeah, that’s a whole other review. But the basic story is the same from what I’ve heard. In any case, I do not know the intent Koushun Tamaki was going for, but from my understanding, Tamaki wrote this in the time where Japan’s age of economic prosperity was fading and many people were feeling the effects of it. Of course, this is merely observation. Going to wikipedia didn’t help, so I’ll just make up what I think he was going for at the time… yeah, this isn’t exactly a professional review.

Anyway, after the novel came the movie, which was directed by Kinji Fukasaku with a screenplay written by his son Kenta. I guess we have padded this out long enough, so I suppose I better dive right into the review.

Now, I established the setting already in Battle Royale, and that’s not a whole lot different from the novel. The backstory to Battle Royale is as follows: After the economic turmoil, and massive job losses in Japan and indeed the world; a total of 800,000 students started protesting school. The new Fascist Japanese government out of a sense of fear passes the Millennium Educational Reform Act to combat the rebellion caused by students. My attention is grabbed, it seems very interesting, I personally want to know what the Millennium Educational Reform Act, or simply the “BR” Act is. Well, it turns out the “BR” Act is a game that combats a random group of 9th graders a duel to the death. Wow, this is fucked up and awesome… Wait a minute, I know it’s awesome in that context, but looking at it as a whole, it makes no fucking sense and is horrendously stupid for a government to do. Even for a National Socialist version of Japan. You see, if you’re a leader of a fascist government, you want to appeal to people, you want to win them over to your side by scape-goating a race of people and by brainwashing people to hate a certain group or a country or what have you. Making school children your “common enemy” is fucking retarded. Not a lot of people would want to have kids in a world where 40 plus 9th graders are forced to kill each other. A high death/murder/suicide rate and a low birth rate is bound to cause some obvious fucking problems for your society. But, I can kind of buy this as a premise, as poor as it is, you can sort of see a convoluted law in this dystopian Japan.

Battle Royale primarily focuses on Shuuya Nanahara, who has the misfortune of being of the 42 people in his class selected to compete in: Battle Royale. Shuuya also has the incredible misfortune to be a pacifist dumbass and a total white knight. Yeah, I have a few problems with this guy, and he’s only slightly believable… if only because he’s not the sharpest tack and is about 15 years old. Shuuya’s whole character revolves around his fucked upped family life, with his mother walking out and his father hanging himself leaving Shuuya a message in toilet paper saying: “Go for it, Shuuya.” One would question the logic of using toilet paper to compose a suicide note, but hey, your bowels loosen once you die, better use it for something.

Shuuya and his classmates are transported to an island after being knocked unconscious by what I can only assume is gas, after they are traveling on a bus to go on a trip. They wake up, and are greeted by their 7th grade teacher, fucking Takeshi Kitano. This movie got 80 degrees more awesome the second he got on screen. But, unfortunately he doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time because this movie is all about the “kids” and not the badass that is Kitano. Kitano’s sole purpose is to oversee the Battle Royale and basically be the game master. After dragging out the body of the class’s 9th grade teacher, and explaining the history of the Millennium Educational Reform Act and a slight overview of the game itself we are then treated to a video that explains the rules of the game hosted by Aya Hirano.



Okay, it’s not actually her, but the voice is very similar to me anyway. Anyway, during this video, Kitano kills a girl for talking over the video and establishes one thing: Nearly all of these characters aren’t important and are cannon fodder to what is called the plot. But, that’s a whole other issue entirely. After the out right murder, the video continues to establish one thing that is never ever used other than as a deterrent. That is, the necklaces around all these kids necks and the use of “danger zones” throughout this island. Which I will get into a minute, but basically, these necklaces are a tracking device, keeping track of heart rate and whose alive or dead. There’s a lot of bullshit around these necklaces. But a key feature of them is the innate ability that they are also explosive devices that will trigger if you enter a danger zone or if you’re stupid enough to get into a fight with Takeshi Kitano and armed guards as Nobu, Shuuya’s friend found out.

Allow me to do a brief analysis on the island setting of Battle Royale since we establish the danger zones and indeed the storyline in general. It’s very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, a book that most people had to read in High School (such as myself) which is about a group of kids on an island and the main thesis of that is that man will turn to savagery if left alone. The key difference being is that Battle Royale is less stupid. It’s a fascist Japan that responds to angry protestors by saying “fuck these little shits, lets teach them about Social Darwinism.” Where as Lord of The Flies a bunch of kids crash land on an island and then decide “lets go ape shit!” Yeah… not exactly a fan of that book. Moving on, the game of Battle Royale, which Kitano explains is this: Kill each other, the winner or the survivor goes home. 40 men enter. 1 man leaves.



Getting back to the plot, after Aya Hirano explains the rules, and how each student gets a weapon at random that ranges from useless to useful, Nobu goes ape shit which results in Kitano blows him up then the game begins. But not before we establish the crush Nobu had on the female lead Noriko, who incidentally Shuuya also has a crush on. Well isn’t that just dandy, your best friend has a crush on a girl you like, a girl who convinces your friend to come back to school, which ultimately leads to his demise. Shuuya, you’re in the clear.

A few quick deaths and we establish the people we are suppose to follow:
Shuuya, Noriko & Kawada
Hiroki Sugimura
Shinji Mimura and his group of people who contribute dick to the story.
Of course there’s the antagonists, Mitsuko and Kiriyama.

Shuuya and Noriko are basically useless as they are pacifist loons and have no weapons team up with Kawada a guy who pretty much saved their asses on more than one occasion because he has a combat shotgun as a weapon.
Sugimura’s whole quest is to follow his penis to find the one girl he really likes and try to bang her before he is ultimately killed… okay, that’s not his goal, but I like it better the way I say it.
Mimura’s story is to pull a Guy Fawkes and do cyber-terrorism to escape the island.

The antagonists are pretty much just “Kill Em All.” But Kiriyama steals the show as he’s a mute motherfucker who signed up for fun. So, people can volunteer for this… Okay, but that just seems like a bad idea in the long term, but I doubt many people are complaining. After all, Kiriyama is the best part of the film. The rest of the plot is non-existent, and the sole reason anyone watches this film is for the mindless deaths. So lets look at the “myriad of problems” I found in this film.

Lets start with those “danger zones”. I said that they act as nothing but a deterrent, that’s because they are established early in the film and are brought up every time Kitano does his PA announcements. We never see anyone wander into one of these zones even accidentally in this film and see their heads roll. The sheer use of “danger zones” is to act as a way for the kids to gather into one place so they don’t scatter and try to hide. No one dies, in them, so they aren’t really needed. I know that it’s not the most exciting ways to see a person die, but do something other with them other than make them act as a deterrent.

That also reminds me of something else, because danger zones have kill people by blowing up these kids necklaces or collars. The necklaces themselves are a tracking device, they are satellite monitored, they monitor heart rate and blood pressure. The big “trick” about these necklaces is they have microphones in them. These kids are fucking idiots if they didn’t think of this before. It’s obvious, if you have technology like these necklaces, developed for use by a government that is very totalitarian, having microphones in these necklaces should be obvious. I get not a whole lot of these kids are smart, save for Mimura, but it’s right around the neck, it’s a fucking microphone.

Speaking of the ineptitude of these kids, something that does bother me a bit is the complete misuse of ranged weapons. I know most of these kids don’t have formal training or knowledge of weapons, neither do I, but it should not be hard to know what a semiautomatic weapon like an Uzi should not be used within less than a yard of the person you’re trying to kill. This happened early on when a group ganged up on Kiriyama and Kiriyama just tackles the guy with an Uzi who is barely a foot away from him. I understand that this film is kind of designed to simulate warfare conditions and involve a psychological aspect but it’s just laughable to me that these kids can’t figure out the proper use of ranged weapons.

Lastly the romantic subtext of the plot is just clunky, awkward and totally out of place in Battle Royale. This is mostly the Sugimura mini-plotline when he has to confront his ex-girlfriend to tell her how “cool” she was. Or just before he gets blown away and spills his heart out to the girl who shot him. It’s so awkward it’s funny. I get it, I get it, high school kids are generally dumb as posts when it comes to romance or taking hints, but this is trying to be a somewhat serious film; Fukasaku’s intent with this film is summed upped near the end of the movie when Shuuya says: “I never really trusted adults.” That was Fukasaku giving his feelings when he was growing up in World War 2 era Japan. Nothing killed that mood faster than the awkward romantic dialogue and subtext in this movie.

Maybe I am being a bit too unfair, after all, there’s plenty of things I enjoyed about Battle Royale. For starters, the soundtrack is amazing, the entire thing is classical music which really lends itself well with the film, the use of Verdi’s “Requiem (Dies Irae)” is a fantastic start up to the whole thing and the ending song “Shizuka na HibI no Kaiden Wo” aka “Climb the Stairs of Quiet Days” by J-Rock/J-Rap group Dragon Ash is a wonderfully memorable song and ties into the film quite well.



The action was intense and was an overall fun film that was really well directed and there was some really good actors in the bunch. It’s a decent enough film that you can turn off your brain and watch, but watching it more than once you will notice a lot of stupid errors and a really unimpressive plot line that while starts off promising, just gets rather stupid as it goes on. As a J-Horror film it’s hard to understand how or why it has garnered a ridiculous amount of acclaim, and as far as J-Horror goes (this barely qualifies as J-Horror quite frankly), there’s been better films; but there’s been worse films. It’s worth a look at, but do not get caught up in the hype; just sit back and enjoy the action.