STORY: The storyline is pretty simple and I even thought there were some "holes" in it but -as I said before- the -frightening- existencial question behind it draws the viewer's attention and makes him wonder "what if...".
ACTING/CAST: The acting is pretty average but it's actually a good thing because if the actors had acted too well the movie would have been unbearable to watch (I still shiver when I think of the delirious smile of the students-turned-crazy-murderers).
MUSIC: What I liked the more about the music isn't the music itself but its use. Classical music when used in a movie/series about normal-people-turning-cray-because-they-have-to-face-death adds something twisted/dark/cynical to it. The use of the slow, peaceful and beautiful music contrasts with what is happening and helps build this almost suffacating athmosphere.
REWATCH VALUE: I don't think this movie could be watched on a daily basis "just for fun". Like I said, the movie in itself isn't that good but it's this question behind it.
OVERALL: The movie is definitely a must-watch (except if you are already a freaking murderer or murderer-to-be). Points of view may differ but I believe the "best" part of it all isn't the blood and the killing but the way each character faced this bloody game and thus it makes us reflect on us.
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Controversial, Bloodthirsty Yet Classic…
Filmed by the late and venerable director Kinji Fukasaku ‘ Battle Royale’ sadly marked the director’s final film before his death but is unsurprisingly highly-regarded as Fukasaku’s magnum opus.
The “ fight-for-survival” genre in films and productions has long been held accountable through the success in Western literature and media. However ‘ Battle Royale’ has long been held accountable amongst Asian-movie enthusiasts as a classic modern game-changer to the genre and whilst often lesser-known against more recent productions, the drama’s legacy has notably lived on across popular culture as an ultra-violent social and sardonic satire upon teens, Japanese society and the widening romantic ideologies of violence in popular culture.
The movie imagines an alternate-future where Japan’s judicial system and government have broken down and delinquency amongst youths runs rampant. In an attempt to pass Draconian judgement upon the new generation the Japanese government puts into law the Battle Royale Act : a piece of legislation which means that a nominated group of young people are forcibly marooned together on an island, and forced to kill each other until one survivor is left.
In the current events of the movie reoccurring main lead bitter and spiteful teacher Kitano ( Beat Takeshi) nominates his class for their acts of disobedience by skipping lessons- explaining the rules and sending the bewildered teens out into the wild of the island as he watches gleefully from afar as the teens begin to grow nastily animalistic as cliches fall apart and distrust runs rife.
The bloodthirsty violence of the movie had admittedly remained a great divide for viewers with some perturbed by the explicit scenes of massacres and blood amongst a main cast of predominantly teenagers ( sans Takeshi and
Ando Masanobu) whilst others may note a form of wry satire by the director against his own personal experiences during childhood as well as intertwined with masterfully-stunning scenes and shots.
There’s a wide range of different characters in addition to Kitano throughout the film; our reoccurring main lead
Shuya Nanahara ( Tatsuya Fujiwara) who remains strongly morally-guided throughout the movie by promising to protect his deceased friend Yoshitoki crush and his classmate Noriko Nakagawa ( Aki Maeda) ; a reserved and good student who was often a prime victim of bullying in her class, Shogo Kawada ( Taro Yamamoto) - the ragtag and gruff transfer student alongside the antagonistic drive of sociopath Kazuo Kiriyama ( Masanobu Ando) and dysfunctional classmate Mitsuko Souma( Ko Shibasaki) play pivotal roles throughout the storyline.
Admittedly whilst the opening brought a proficient introduction to our main players and the world-building of the series where delirium and fear plague the teens during their descent into moral decadence, the main- climax of the movie could often lack proficiency. Whilst the duration length and pacy storyline had to maintain more subtle backstories and revelations the movie could often lead some key characters towards feeling less-developed than others and sometimes less engaged at times in the tales of friendships, betrayals, attractions, crushes and unrequited loved which emerge in the blood battle.
However the entirety of the movie can be often to be cited as not merely just a satire but a metaphor toward the painful and anguished experiences of youth which is brilliantly brought to life by the spine-tingling soundtrack of the series ( which is most notably reciprocated in recent films and productions as a homage to the film.) The ending of the movie is initially divisive but does offer contemplation for viewers. Overall a classic movie which whilst not for the faint hearted is powerful.
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To me, the brutality of this movie is the very thing that makes it so good. Normally I'd despise anything like this but for some reason BR is a huge exception.
The soundtrack is pure gold, many characters are really interesting - more or less - and the amount of action is just fine for me. However, only a few actors impressed me. Most of the whole cast left me sort of empty though I wouldn't say any actor in this movie is actually poor. Then again, I guess that's okay since there are so many characters in BR and at least all the main actors are brilliant.
Overall BR would deserve 10 but the lack of impressive actors bugs me just enough to make this 9. Anyway, this is and forever will be one of my favourite movies.
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Most of all, its similarities with Hunger Games kept me hooked. Some things seemed to have been incorporated exactly into the story of Hunger Games. Anyway, there is nothing happy about this film. The whole plot can be summed up as children killing children in outright sick ways. But again, those are the exciting parts. This movie should only be watched by those who don't mind bloodshed. If you do mind it, then please skip this film altogether.
I have almost nothing to criticize about in the plot. But some characters were over-written (like the teacher), and ended up being funny- because they were so, so dramatic. Drama can be both good and bad so some aspects of this were outright bad. The direction is flawed and the editing could have been better. But maybe because it had a lot going on in the film that I wasn't really bored. This is a big thing because I am an easily bored person.
This is one of those movies which you have to watch before judging. It is not at all disappointing. But the movie left me feeling drained so I am not going to rewatch it. If this interests you, go and watch it- it won't let you down.
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Fairly entertaining, insanely ridiculous.
Did I have fun? Kind of. Did it take me 4 hours to finish it? Yes. Did I feel bad about being bored while watching all the kids dying? No. And that all kind of sums up all the problems I had with the movie.Personally, I’m the person who needs some kind of explanation for the events happening, otherwise I cannot connect to what I see on the screen and I get bored. And we got exactly zero explanations in Battle Royale. What was the goal of the law? What was supposed to be the positive effect it has? What was the motivation make it happen? We don’t know and I honestly cannot think of a truly logical one myself that would make sense in any universe. So the movie ends up with being just… kids killing themselves and each other. And that’s kind of boring.
That said, there were two aspects I did enjoy:
My favorite part of the movie was for sure everyone taking their sweet time dying after being shot 4868374587439 times. They do need to give their final monologues after all.
Jokes aside, one thing I truly liked is how the kids are accused of basically the collapse of moral standards and crumbling society, but as the movie progresses, we see many flashbacks of all the adults who failed the same kids that are blamed now. Great way to showcase how youth is often blamed the negative consequences of adults’ actions and decisions - still relevant 23 years after the movie was made. It’s not the kids that ruined the society, it’s the society that failed the kids.
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The story revolves around a group of young students who were forced to survive at all cost during a time in Japan when chaos and violence ruled the streets. In order to make sure, the youth are aware of their predicament and to ensure that the adults continue to rule, only one of them can survive and thus the lesson is learned.
Never mind the comparison with The Hunger Games, because Battle Royale is way way better than the other movie.
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The storyline is not really told often, but it's pretty good. It's like a what if this actually happens in real life? What would we do in a situation like this? It makes you think & sympathize the characters that were going through. Also you'll want to cheer on the leads to win & you would get to know some of the characters for they were before the game. Also they try to find out who's friend & who's foe. Are they your true friends, or would they kill each other to save themselves? It's one of those movies where you think about a lot of things that the characters go through.
The acting is great. You get symathize with some of the people. It had a lot of emotion & suspense. I was scared who was next & who would push whom's buttons.
The music sets the tone of the story, but it's not something I would listen to over and over.
I won't re-watch this movie becuase I don't usually watch horror or action with gore usually. Even though I like this movie, I wouldn't watch this for a 2nd time.
Overall, I recommend it if you like action, gore(there are some), students fighting for survival, older movies, the actors/actresses or if you like the director of the movie(I think it's on this site if you look up the movie). There a tiny bit of romance, but it's vague & it's not important at all.
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To sum up Battle Royale is a good movie for its period not because of its acting or any other cinematographic value, but because of the idea behind it.
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A cult film only but not that good...
The beggining was really good. Then it starts being boring. I hate the MC, he is even more naive than most MCs in shonen as to say. He does nothing except whimping in his scenes so...For the movie's duration, I felt like we could have more characters' backgrounds explained and character development. Ofc we had some, but it was not sufficient. I still need an explanation of what's going on in between noriko and the teacher. I have an idea but it's something shady and I prefer ignore it.
The only plotwist in this would be when kawada found out how to escape together.
Not sure if I'mma watch the Requiem because for the first part of the movie I was excited to find a site on which to go watch it since it is considered a cult movie (that even inspired hunger games) everyone keeps talking abt and I was really disappointed.
It's a go for a one time watching but I surely won't give it a high rewatch value.
Though shoutout to the stunts choreographers and the actors as well. They did a great job on this aspect. For that time especially !
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This review may contain spoilers
Interesting and good
This is an older one so the quality was not so great. But the story was interesting.At times it was just overly brutal and hard to watch and other times it was kinda cheesy which is good cause I couldn't have handled it if it was more realistic. Definitely dark though. Probably won't watch it again though.
Though the scene at the end between the girl and the teacher had me wondering what that was about. I will have to look it up and see if I can find anything.
The music definitely gave me Star Wars vibes and it made it feel more dated to me. It was used well but not something that stood out in a good way in my opinon.
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