At the dawn of a new millennium, Japanese society is out of hand.
Unemployment rates are at an all-time high; kids are skipping
school and physically assaulting their teachers. This has led to
the government introducing a new measure to keep kids in line -
the Battle Royale Act. Every year, a ninth-grade class is chosen
at random and transported to a deserted island, where they are
equipped with "Wedlock"-style necklaces that can be made to
explode, a map, a compass, food and water and a weapon. Their
goal is to survive for three days on the island - while killing
off all of their classmates. If, at the end of day three, more
than one person is alive, they are all killed.

The hero of this movie is ninth-grader Shuya Nanahara, who swears
that he will protect the girl he loves, Noriko, and somehow make
sure they both survive. He is unwilling to kill but desperate not
to die, an attitude not shared by all, as we are about to
witness.

As they are equipped with various weapons, ranging from pot lids
to machine guns, we observe how different their attitudes turn
out to be, from Nanahara who is devastated when he thinks he
accidentally killed another boy, to the machine-gun wielding kid
who kills everyone in his path without remorse.

"Battle Royale" has been compared to Stanley Kubrick's "A
Clockwork Orange". I would hesitate making that comparison,
mostly because I'm not a huge fan of Kubrick's. While "A
Clockwork Orange" is almost as disturbing in its violence as
"Battle Royale", the latter is in my opinion the superior film.
The sight of 15-year old kids dressed in school uniforms killing
each other with crossbows, sickles, axes and machine-guns is much
more disturbing than watching a bunch of freaks wearing false
noses assaulting a helpless man. It is hard to put yourself in
the position of Alex and his cronies in "A Clockwork Orange",
simply because they are so strange. This is not the case with the
kids in "Battle Royale".

The absence of flashy camerawork, slow motion and other cinematic
tricks transforms the camera from a machine to a nihilistic
outside observer. This is a trademark in Japanese cinema, and has
been used in films as varied in style and context as Takeshi
Kitano's "Violent Cop" and Norifumi Suzuki's "Star of David:
Beautiful Girl Hunter". Not to mention that making a movie like
this in the days of Columbine requires something that virtually
all American film-makers lack: guts. That no American distributor
dared import "Battle Royale" just goes to show how conformist the
once individualistic American society really has become.

So is there nothing about this film that could be better? Well,
yes. There are two things I feel should have been different.
First of all the length of the film. At a mere 109 minutes, it is
too short. I would have wanted another thirty minutes or so
explaining the background, to get to know the kids better. We do
get to know them through a few flashbacks, but I would have
wanted more. Had this film started out as a typical American high-
school film like "The Breakfast Club" or "American Pie" the
violence would have been even more disturbing. Second of all,
it's the violence itself. While I do not feel that violence is in
itself important to a film, it does serve a purpose. My objection
is not that there is too much violence, but that it is not
graphic enough. When I see a kid getting shot I don't just want a
squib going off (a squib is a small plastic bag or rubber balloon
filled with fake blood, which is made to explode to give the
impression of a gunshot wound), I want Dario Argento-style
effects where you follow the bullet through the body, showing the
effects of the gunshot in all their gory details. If that would
be too flashy for this film, why not at least use the great
Japanese tradition of special effects and make a film that makes
your stomach turn?

Nevertheless, "Battle Royale" is an experience unlike any other,
and if there was any kind of justice in the world this is the
film that would win the Academy Award for best foreign film. We
all know that it won't. This is a movie that dares question
modern society and what it is doing to people, and that is the
reason why it will never win an Oscar. It is not conformist
enough. That is why I love it.

All I can say is: "Arigato, Kinji-san."


Fantastic Film   August 5, 2006
 16 out of 19 found this review helpful

This is a great movie. Its is so disturbing not because a bunch of friends are forced to kill each other but because of the way everything is handled. Every violent act is done is a screwed up humorous way. I prefer this movie over the long winded book which you have to strain yourself to read the violence. Also the manga gets a little boring at times and is more of a porno than anything else. The movie has great acting and is never hard to understand. Its also not 'too artsy'. its perfect. It is way better than the second one. Every character is fully developed and most have back stories. Its hard to do that in any movie especially one where there are so many characters. There was one weird moment where the main girl character has a dream. That's really the only part I didn't understand. In all I would say that this film is a turn gold standard of Japanese films. Its one of my all time favorites.


Disappointing Director's Cut   June 10, 2007
 15 out of 18 found this review helpful

Before you type out a retaliatory positive review- read on!

I want to start off by saying I absolutely LOVE Battle Royale- It is most certainly on my list of favorite movies. HOWEVER- this 'Director's Cut' is total garbage.

Sadly, as with the case for many 'Special Edition' DVDs, Battle Royale: Director's Cut adds unnecessary footage that does nothing to enhance the film. The end is extending by 8 minutes or so - and delves into a sort of epilogue and series of dream sequences.

The Battle Royale wiki explains the changes here: (...)

No attempt was made to clean up the subtitles: I can ignore misspellings and incorrect conjugations - however at one point the subtitles ran off the screen. The subtitles in the added scenes were far worse than that of the rest of the movie.

I am not bashing Battle Royale; I want people to buy the regular version and forget that this Director's Cut is even an option.


We, who are about to die...   April 15, 2004
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

"Battle Royale" is a superb film, subtle and sad and over-the-top and loud all at the same time. The story is often compared to "Lord of the Flies," but that is a bit of a misnomer. "Lord of the Flies" was about reverting to primitivism, whereas "Battle Royale" is a futuristic cautionary tale in the tune of "1984" and "Brave New World." The caution at work here is the threat of absolute bureaucracy, and the dangers of the loss of the value of life and respect in a rules-dominated society. This is a threat quite apparent in modern Japan.

The actors in "Battle Royale" all deliver excellent performances, including the amazing talent "Beat" Takeshi Kitano playing the appropriately named "Kitano." The film was not directed by Takeshi however, so it lacks his beautiful visual style. It does however feature one of his riveting paintings. There is a good range of responses from the various actors playing the students, from outright suicide, to panic, to a drive to win to a drive to help. Unfortunately, the character of Kazuo Kiriyama (the machine gun boy) is woefully underdeveloped, and instead of the fierce, cold genius of the book he is a somewhat characterless villain.

While a violent film, I wouldn't characterize "Battle Royale" as an action film per se. Anyone looking for a Hong Kong-style action film should realize that Japan and China are quite different countries with different approach to movies.. "Battle Royale" retains the quietude and patient pacing that is the hallmark of Japanese cinema, and which leaves some viewers bored, who are used to a quicker pacing. The bloodshed, while in great quantity, is also more cartoony in nature, which is also more typical of Japanese films, which does not favor a naturalistic approach.

I think some familiarity with problems in modern Japan (ie: school violence, overwhelming bureaucracy) gives some necessary perspective to this controversial movie, and helps frame it as more than exploitation. It is a political statement, with a subtle message underlying the overt violence. Along with this, knowledge of Japanese culture deepens the understandings of certain scenes, such as when Kitano performs the prescribed exercises, and the training video shown at the beginning. Without understanding, these scenes might come off as merely quaint or odd.