Battle Royal

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-09-27 09:14am

has anyone seen Battle Royal with beat takeshi? does anybody know what the fuck it is about? i saw it yesterday and didn´t have a clue what the wanted to tell the audience or if was just a weird and pointless piece of film.

<edit>hmm i just read that the german version is 40 minutes shorter than the original version</edit>

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2003-09-27 10:01am

Is that that weird Japanese film about a load of school kids who are forced to fight or somthing?

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-09-27 10:47am

2000AD wrote:Is that that weird Japanese film about a load of school kids who are forced to fight or somthing?

yeah, they get dumped onto an island, get individual weapons and have to koll each other. sort of like mean guns.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-09-27 11:21am

I think Spanky read the book and said he really liked it.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-09-27 12:51pm

Battle Royale. The premise is basically that Japanese schoolkids no longer are the whizkids who committ suicide when they can't get into college and don't give a shit anymore, and their economy is going the way of the Dodo. The Japanese government then enacts the BR Act which randomly (though no so random as we see) chooses a class to fight to the death where only one kid would remain alive.

I guess the Japanese government hopes that by having BR, it will teach the kids to be competitive again and teach them that life is about the survival of the fittest.

Those in this particular BR-match, it's been rigged by both sides. On the kids side is the one who previously survived the BR before and is looking for revenge. His story is quite sad, he and his girlfriend survived until the end promising never to fight against each other. But then the time came to the deadline, I guess she thought her life was more important and fired, or fired at him to provoke him to kill her. Which is why he was warning the main characters that in the game.. everything changes.

On the other side of the fence is the teacher. He had a score to settle with that particular class and quickly blows the head off of a student that had previously cut his leg. I found the teacher to be an amazing character though and really enjoyed his scenes. As you progress through the movie I find I really pitied him. He was a failure. He failed to teach the class, and he failed as a parent. His only success or pride was the main girl character. And it seemed as if he was always keeping an eye on her and he wanted her the one to make it through, his success through her success of the game.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2003-09-27 01:19pm

I've got the film on DVD, got the book in the upcoming pile, and am awaiting the sequel.

There's also a manga version adapted seperately from the book, which I've seen but not read.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-09-27 02:29pm

What I question is, why bother to go to class if it's supposed to be random? It's not like the worst classes go to the island. Therefore there is no incentive to act good if you can still have to go.

Besides, I'd rather be home training to fight and other skills in case I'm taken. And it's probably safer than waiting to see if I get kidnapped on a school trip.

And is it just me, or does anybody else think of Survivor when they were watchin git.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-09-27 06:04pm

The reason to go to class is probably because the socio-fascist Greater East Asia government probably requires school attendence by law, and if you refuse you'll get sent to a labour camp and be worked to death.

I've only read the book, and thought it was one of the best that I've ever read in my life. I have no desire to see the film or read the manga, as they could in no way whatsoever compare to the film that played in my head while reading it. And from hearing the major differences that Trytostaydead mentioned, I definately will not be seeing the movie version ever...

SHODAN · Post by **SHODAN** » 2003-09-27 06:21pm

Gah, this thread made me realize I still do not own BR DVD. Going going shopping now.

-gone-

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-09-27 06:23pm

the thing is, at least the version i saw lacked anything you´d call context. it seemed like it was a bunch of confusing scenes glued together.
for example:
a guy tells a girl that he had loved since some lower grade, she tells him to fuck off and he wants to shoot her. he gets shot by some other girl who also tries to shoot the first girl. the first girl manages to escape but gets wounded and suddetnly some other guy pops up out of nowhere and tells her that he´s always loved her. she dies and none of them appear again in the movie.
and stuff like that happens all the time.

i guess it´s because the fucktartds censored a whole bunch of scenes. as i said before the german version is 40 minutes shorter because they cut out apparently valuable scenes.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2003-09-27 07:20pm

I can see how that would confuse things..

And the moral of the story?

Importing is good for you.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2003-09-27 07:24pm

This is available in the US? How old is it? It sounds interesting, if nothing else...

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-09-27 07:34pm

RogueIce wrote:This is available in the US? How old is it? It sounds interesting, if nothing else...

it´s from late 2002. i´m quite sure it´s available in the us.

google for: battle royal kitano

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-09-27 08:29pm

Yeah, I heard about that movie. IIRC, it was supposed to be really violent and gory, and a bit incoherent even in the original version.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-09-27 08:34pm

salm wrote:
RogueIce wrote:This is available in the US? How old is it? It sounds interesting, if nothing else...
it´s from late 2002. i´m quite sure it´s available in the us.

google for: battle royal kitano

Not really. I had to import mine.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-09-27 08:34pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:The reason to go to class is probably because the socio-fascist Greater East Asia government probably requires school attendence by law, and if you refuse you'll get sent to a labour camp and be worked to death.

I question which one is worse. A potentially quick death, or a slow one.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-09-28 06:36am

neoolong wrote: Not really. I had to import mine.

interesting. from japan? do they come with subtitles then?

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-09-28 03:22pm

salm wrote:the thing is, at least the version i saw lacked anything you´d call context. it seemed like it was a bunch of confusing scenes glued together.
for example:
a guy tells a girl that he had loved since some lower grade, she tells him to fuck off and he wants to shoot her. he gets shot by some other girl who also tries to shoot the first girl. the first girl manages to escape but gets wounded and suddetnly some other guy pops up out of nowhere and tells her that he´s always loved her. she dies and none of them appear again in the movie.
and stuff like that happens all the time.

i guess it´s because the fucktartds censored a whole bunch of scenes. as i said before the german version is 40 minutes shorter because they cut out apparently valuable scenes.

Perhaps. But that scene actually played out differently. She never told him to fuck off. He went off looking for her to try to protect her. But she was out of her mind with fear and thought he had hunted her down to kill her and started shooting blindly. And as he lay dying he confessed of his love. And then the girl was killed by the psycho-chick. The psycho-chick was a sad story as well.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-09-28 05:23pm

I'm not sure if I heard correctly, but I thought I read somewhere that part of BR's backstory was that Japan had won World War 2?

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2003-09-28 05:39pm

salm wrote:
neoolong wrote: Not really. I had to import mine.
interesting. from japan? do they come with subtitles then?

No. Limited edition British version of amazon.co.uk.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2003-09-28 06:07pm

Trytostaydead wrote: Perhaps. But that scene actually played out differently. She never told him to fuck off. He went off looking for her to try to protect her. But she was out of her mind with fear and thought he had hunted her down to kill her and started shooting blindly. And as he lay dying he confessed of his love. And then the girl was killed by the psycho-chick. The psycho-chick was a sad story as well.

in the scene before
you see the girl running in a yellow running suit and you think: what the hell is this chick doing? she´s doing sports on an island with a whole bunch of folks wanting to kill her?
and suddently there´s a guy on a bike behind her. they talk a while and all of a sudden the guy(who never appears again) + his bike are gone and the scene mentioned above starts.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-09-28 06:38pm

salm wrote: in the scene before
you see the girl running in a yellow running suit and you think: what the hell is this chick doing? she´s doing sports on an island with a whole bunch of folks wanting to kill her?
and suddently there´s a guy on a bike behind her. they talk a while and all of a sudden the guy(who never appears again) + his bike are gone and the scene mentioned above starts.

It was scene using a flashback of the guy she loved (who didn't love her back, but just thought of her as a really good friend) when he used to ride with her as she jogged.

As for jogging on an island while people were trying to kill her, I agree I was kind of feeling like this:

However, the director did try to from the beginning make her feel incredulous about the whole event. She didn't want to accept it so she went about doing what she would normally be doing.

Like the group of girls that were trying to hide and escape, they spent their time playing and cooking until they killed each other off.

Or the kids who committed suicide.

It's kind of like Dawn of the Dead. How do people react when their world has gone to shit?

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