Battle Royale

 

(2000) Directed by Kinji Fukasaku; Written by Kenta Fukasaku; Based on the novel by  Koushun Takami; Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto, Chiaki Kuriyama, Takashi Tsukamoto, and Takeshi Kitano; Available on Blu-ray and DVD 

Rating: ****

“I had a horrible experience escaping air bombing and helping to pick up dismembered limbs of people who were killed. I realized later that I was told lies by the Japanese military government that told us we have to fight to save our country from the enemy. I felt cheated and isolated. This is what I wanted to portray in the movie.” – Kinji Fukusaku 

“Basically, the person who is outside the battlefield or someone who can calmly observe the whole situation has the most power. Below that level are the people who actually fight. That’s the nature of violence. The most frightening person is the one who is quiet and lets others be violent.” – Takeshi Kitano

Where does influence end and originality begin? Or perhaps this is the wrong question to ask. Film fans and critics alike often look for the mythical “first” movie that started it all, but that’s not as easy as it seems. The more movies I see, the more I realize it’s just one big continuum, with ideas constantly being recycled, regurgitated, and re-formed to fit the moment. Consider Battle Royale, one film that’s engendered the cinematic equivalent of the “chicken or the egg” debate since its release, and the subsequent franchises that drew upon it for inspiration (whether intended or not). The Hunger Games (2012), Ready or Not (2019), and Squid Games could arguably be considered direct descendants of Battle Royale, but Battle Royale didn’t exist in a vacuum, with the many books and films that preceded it encoded in its DNA (The Most Dangerous Game, Lord of the Flies, and The 10^th Victim, to name only a few). Veteran director Kinji Fukasaku,*/** best known for his controversial Yakuza films of the ‘60s and ‘70s*** prompted more controversy with his adaptation of Koushun Takami’s 1999 novel. 

* Fun Fact #1: Fukasaku celebrated two milestones with Battle Royale: His 60^th feature film and his 70^th birthday. 

** Not-So-Fun fact: Sadly, Battle Royale would prove to be his last completed project. Fukasaku died of cancer only a couple of years later, while filming Battle Royale II: Requiem (which was finished by his son, Kenta). 

*** Fun Fact #2: Kinji Fukasaku is probably best-known on these shores, however, for the kitschy space epic The Green Slime (1968).

Set in a dystopian near-future, Japanese society has eroded to the point where unemployment has reached 15%, youth violence has run rampant, and public schools can no longer manage their students. In response to these changes, the “BR Act” was created, to keep the young people in line. In the film, a classroom of 42 middle school students (traveling under the auspices of an end-of-year field trip) are brought to a remote island.* They soon learn they’re about to embark on a three-day life-or-death competition, with the object of killing each other off, until the last boy or girl is standing. Each student is subsequently provided with supplies (including a random weapon), and sent out meet his or her fate. To discourage any thoughts of escape, each student is equipped with necklaces that will explode if they disobey or attempt to tamper with the devices. Beyond the constraints of the island and necklaces, there are no rules. 

* Fun Fact #3: The island used for filming was Hachijō-kojima, a small island that has remained uninhabited (except for a population of goats) since the late 1960s.

Much like Lord of the Flies, some of the students form alliances, in the hopes that they will get through this together, but it’s merely delaying the inevitable. When “kill or be killed” is the only imperative, most of them do away with the pretense of friendship or teamwork. One such alliance is between “transfer student” Shôgo Kawada - Boy #5 (Tarô Yamamoto), who survived the game before, but at the expense of his girlfriend. He initiates a shaky truce with Shuya Nanahara - Boy #15 and Noriko Nakagawa - Girl #15 (Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda, respectively). Kawada casts a shadow on his credibility when he continually changes his back-story (claiming at different times to be the son of a doctor, chef, and fisherman), leaving Shuya and Noriko to question his motives. While some choose to team up, others prefer to act alone. Another transfer student, Kazuo Kiriyama - Boy #6 (Masanobu Andô), operates on his own, mercilessly killing off the other students with maniacal glee. But at least everyone knows where they stand with Kiriyama. Less predictable is Mitsuko Sôma - Girl #11 (Kô Shibasaki), using every trick she knows to lull her fellow students into a false sense of security. A brief flashback to her early childhood provides a sympathetic view of an otherwise unsympathetic character, who vowed never to become a victim.

As disturbing as the students’ behavior may be, it pales in comparison to their teacher Kitano, played by comic actor Takeshi Kitano (aka: “Beat” Kitano). Kitano steals the show whenever he’s onscreen, with his deadpan delivery. In the opening scene, set a couple years before the government-ordained bloodbath, he’s stabbed by a student, resulting in his departure from the school. Now, bitter and estranged from his family, he returns to see his old class kill each other. Whatever status quo he’s preserving has done nothing to improve his life or set a model example for the younger generation. One nice little touch, illustrating Kitano’s amorality, is his munching on a bag of cookies (while he tracks the carnage from a control room) that was being shared by his students a only few hours earlier. One aspect that’s never fully explored is his soft spot for Noriko, who seems to fill the void (at least in his mind) of his broken relationship with his own daughter.

It would be a gross understatement to say that Battle Royale must have been a tough sell to any potential distributors (including its delay in getting a theatrical release in the States). It’s easy to see how it would be unpalatable to most audiences to depict a bunch of 9^th grade kids (most of whom were played by actors in their mid to late teens) murdering each other. Battle Royale was a lightning rod for its detractors, who focused on the content rather than the subtext. The satire was lost on members of Japanese parliament who decried the film as depicting violence for violence’s sake. When it was screened for the politicians, it evoked a knee-jerk reaction without analyzing what the film was attempting to say (Illustrated by the following selected quotes from two lawmakers on opposite ends of the political spectrum: “The movie is crude and it is tasteless.”; and “This movie is anti-social. It shows distinct acts of violence that have no place on the screen.”). In the context of the film, violence isn’t an end to itself, but a symptom of one of the main underlying themes – the breakdown in communications between the older and younger generations. Although Fukasaku’s interview quote referred to one of his earlier Yakuza films, it applies to his raison d'être for Battle Royale: “… I became interested in violence itself, its contagious, chaotic purposeless character.” When friends (or at least individuals that harbored no former animosity) are forced to fight for their survival, humanity is reduced to its most primitive state, where relationships in the outside world have no meaning. The adults’ answer, meeting the students’ violence with violence, is nothing but a dead end.

Battle Royale keeps many plates spinning as it follows the students’ individual personalities, and for the most part, it succeeds admirably. The message flew over the heads of well-intentioned, but misguided critics, politicians and concerned parents, but managed to reach audiences who appreciated its sardonic tone. The social commentary isn’t subtle, but then again that’s the point. Kinji Fukasaku’s film is at once a pitch-dark comedy, and a cautionary tale about what might happen if we ever grew accustomed to the wholesale slaughter of our fellow human beings. In its own way, Battle Royale recalls Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” taking a cartoonishly extreme stance, but with a wink and a heaping helping of stage blood. 

 

Sources for this article: “Kinji Fukasaku: An Introduction,” by Keiko McDonald, Film Criticism (Fall 1983, volume 8, issue 1); “Japanese Pols Taking Aim at ‘Battle’ Over Violence,” by Jon Herskovitz, Variety (December 4-10, 2000); “More to Him than ‘Green Slime,’” by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times (January 17, 2001); “A Battle Royal Over Movie Violence,” by Suvendrini Kakuchi, World Press Review (March 2001); Interview with Takeshi Kitano (included in 2014 Arrow Blu-ray)