Warning: The following review contains images from a film that is not appropriate for those under 17 years of age.

There will be images that might not be for the faint of heart, please use your best judgement when reading this review. 

With all the recent talk about battle-royale modes in video games and even a real-life battle royale in the works; I have been getting a hankering to go and re-watch the movie that shot up in infamy in the early 2000’s for its “tasteless violence” and supposedly influenced the youth crime wave in Japan. For 11 years Battle Royale never saw a release in the U.S. or Canada except for the odd film festival until 2012 when Anchor Bay Entertainment finally decided to distribute the film here in North America.

Battle Royale takes place after a recession in Japan, the Japanese government enact a new law called the “BR Act” or the “Battle Royale” act. This act is meant to take 42 middle school students annually to a remote island and force them to kill each other within a three-day time limit. The law is meant to attempt to bring youths back in line after they lose all respect for authority.

The main thing that makes Battle Royale stand out and sets it apart from other movies like The Hunger Games or The Running Man is that these children are classmates and most of them grew up with each other. This creates an amazing feeling of tension and disbelief at some of the films most gruesome deaths.

We don’t get a lot of screen time with all the children as there’s only so much we can explore within a two-hour run-time. Yet somehow, writer Kenta Fukasaku and director Kinji Fukasaku both did an outstanding job making the audience understand how being forced into a life or death situation can change even the gentleness kind-hearted person to an axe-wielding murder in a matter of minutes. That makes the audience feel for each death, and this is one of Battle Royale’s greatest accomplishments.

Battle Royale’s main cast are explored extremely well so that we understand how these 15-year-old kids can maintain their humanity throughout this ordeal. The group of troubled students all have relationships with one another: whether they’re teammates, couples, or best friends, all of them have bonds that make the killing more intense and meaningful.

Flashbacks are Battle Royale’s main way of fleshing out character backstories and giving the audience enough context to make the audience empathize with not only the protagonists Shuya Nanahara, and Noriko Nakagawa but also antagonists Mitsuko Souma and Kitano. All of these characters get enough screen time to explore their complex lives and relationships that in turn help explore the more minor characters of the film.

Composer Masamichi Amano took some classical western pieces like Dies Irae from Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem help build the music for the film. Amano built a stellar soundtrack that ratchets up the intense attraction but is subtle enough in the more poignant moments, overall the musical variety complements the films more intense nature.

Battle Royale was an instant classic with its initial release, now with nearly 20 years of infamy, it still proves to be a harrowing, intense and emotional piece of cinema history that should really be experienced by all.

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Battle Royale

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Fitting Score
• Intense Story
• Deep characters

Cons

• Story skips over key infomation at times