Battle Royale (Director's Cut)

Synopsis: In the future the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other. 

Cult films largely derive their status from their appeal to a specific demographic and Battle Royale is no exception. The demographic here is that weirdly insensible world of audiences who enjoy fantasies of ultra-violence (it is little surprise that the film is a Tarantino favourite with the actress, Chiaki Kuriyama, who plays the yellow track-suited Chigusa, appearing similarly attired as Go Go Yubari in Kill Bill 1). Whilst I assume also that it would speak much more resonantly to a Japanese audience who have grown up under the nation’s highly regimented educational system and for whom the manga cartoon culture is presumably an outlet from their restricted lives, if you don’t partake of either of those two demographics it is unlikely that you will see merit in what is essentially an exploitation action movie.

The story is set in a near future (now past) when society is on the verge of collapse with rebellious teenagers running amok (which basically seems to be playing truant). Presumably as a method of control the government implements a parliamentary act which requires that randomly selected groups of junior high students be sent to an isolated island and forced to play the ultimate survival game: fighting each other until all but one of their number are killed.

Given this crude premise one hopes that there is some additional Lord of the Flies dimension that might make the film interesting but no, interludes of sentimentality and overlays of classical music aside, this is entirely what Battle Royale amounts to – a bloody elimination contest, which, given that half the cast are girls in school uniforms complete with virginally white petticoats and ankle socks, is singularly distasteful.  

Beat Takeshi stars as Kitano, a former teacher who apparently to revenge himself on his unruly charges, oversees their murderous excursion. I do enjoy Takeshi’s phlegmatic screen persona and the mordant black humour of his cop and gangster films. But not only does the violence makes sense in those contexts it is a lot more stylishly realized than veteran director (this was his 60th film) Fukasaku’s sadistically dull ten-green-bottles approach. The film ends with a rather Takeshi-like meditative ending but it too is but a poor simulacrum of that director’s much better films.

FYI:  It was followed by a 2003 sequel, Battle Royale II Requiem that in the best sequel tradition upped the ante with more killing and lashings of the red stuff, the result disappointing even fans of the original.

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