SummaryA group of students from Shiroiwa Junior High found their bus hijacked during their school trip only to learn that they were chosen to take part in the 'Battle Royale' program. It is not just a normal program, the program requires the participant to kill each other until one survive. Who will survive...
Cast
Fujiwara Tatsuya, Maeda Aki, Yamamoto Tara, Masanobu Andao, Tsukamoto Takashi, Kuriyama Chiaki, etc.
Nanahara Shuya the main character found himself and his other classmates in a situation he never imagined. A situation where they need to kill each other. Being deserted in an inhabited island, they cannot run away. Even the sea were surrounded by government's army. One might think that they can choose not to kill anyone, or they can choose to just stay hiding in a safe place BUT the program has its own way to avoid that. Around each of everyone's neck was a collar that monitor their pulse and send data back to the headquarters. There must be one survivor in the period of 24 hours or the collars will explode and everyone'll die. There will also be danger zone that will be announced each hour, when it becomes a danger zone every student in that area will die as the collars will explode. In a situation as extreme as this, to no surprise people start being desperate to kill their own friends. In addition of their class is also a transfer student, Kiriyama Kazuo who is a cold person and seemed to be a scary person. He got no feeling and enjoyed killing people which made him the number one person you don't want to cross. Shuya on the other hand believe there will be a way to run from the program that he refuse to bow to the program. Noriko tagged with him and he tried to protect her before meeting another transfer student, Kawada and they teamed up. There is also a group of student which try to destroy the headquarter by making bombs and hacking into the system. There are many other significant character in the movie. The scene in the lighthouse is one of the scene that stay put in my mind for quite a time... it's painful to see how things go wrong when in the beginning there is hope -- that it comes as one of remarkable scene in the movie. The scene shows a group of girl who decided to trust and live with each other due to some misunderstanding light up a spark of defensive nature that lead to all of them killed. Is Shuya, Noriko and Kawada able to find a way to survive? As later revealed Kawada was a former winner of one of the past BR program. They managed to survive at the end. Not one, but three of them.
***************
It's controversial because of it extreme theme, it was banned inMalaysia. Japan was trying to ban the original novel and then the movie but to no success. Despite that, I enjoy watching this because of this controversial theme. Once in a while, a movie like this can be a nice entertainment although in that violence way. I like thriller so when a movie make me thrilled I like it. Battle Royale got some of the moment that can make you go 'oh no! don't!'.., 'what happen'... etc...
There is english translated novel available, I've read it and like it better than the movie so if you get the chance do read it.
|