With Battle Royale, director Kinji Fukasaku created a metaphor for the trials of life, a satire upon government, a critique of interpersonal bonds, a parody of reality television, a study of social Darwinism, and a scathing piece of black humor. Imagine Lord of the Flies combined with The Most Dangerous Game set in Japan with a cast of children and you’ll have an idea of the structure of Fukasaku’s cinematic tour de force.
During a time of economic instability and social upheaval, Japan passes the Battle Royale Act, in part to par down the upcoming youth population as well as thwart juvenile rebellion. The Act delineates a “game” where forty-two children (twenty-one of each gender) of the same grade level are selected and sent to an isolated island where, under the supervision of Kitano (Takeshi Kitano), a former school teacher, they are presented with a training video–narrated by Oneesan (Yûko Miyamura), which translates as “Big Sister,” a nod to the Orwellian regime taking place–before being issued a survival pack equipped with a map of the island, a flashlight, a compass, rations, and a random weapon (which, as in life, some are better equipped then others). As stated on the video, the children have three days in which to kill their peers. If more than one person is left alive by the deadline, the tracking collars which were placed on them upon their arrival will explode, resulting in instant death. In order to remind the children of the authenticity of their circumstance, announcements are made every six hours over the island’s speaker system which lists recent deaths by name and number.
However gruesome the plot may sound, atop the fact that the roles of the children (the last winner of the Royale was in fourth grade) are played by children and not young adults, the film is one of the greatest works by one of Japan’s foremost filmmakers. The film could have easily descended into gratuitous scenes of violence as the children kill one another. Instead, the director explores the mindsets of the individuals involved while the camera records the various students’ approaches to their dilemma. Most intriguingly, Fukasaku puts on ready display a gauntlet of emotions typical of the age group in order to weigh how the predicament will effect their varying sentimentalities.
Most every viewer will know someone who approaches life in a manner similar to one or more of the characters onscreen (Fukasaku implying that daily life is a Battle Royale as well as highlighting how much adult society still acts on an elementary level) while other audience members will find themselves a little too close to home with other personalities. For example, some characters instantly break down and cry under the weight of the situation, becoming easy prey for those who readily engage in the game, while others wishfully attempt to downplay the scenario, hoping at the end the 72-hour period–if they are not discovered and killed–they will merely be allowed to leave and resume life at they once knew it. Still others opt for suicide. A handful make quick use of the opportunity afforded them as they pursue and dispatch the antagonists of their adolescent rivalries. A few merely return to their romantic pursuits where they last left them before being selected in lieu of the immediacy of their present circumstance. One female utilizes her feminine charm in order to lure would-be alphas into range, who would otherwise readily kill her, before executing them. Several approach the game more strategically as they attempt to gain powers in numbers but, as the figures on the island steadily decrease, such members commence gauging one another’s assessment of when action within the group would be advantageous as paranoia begins to reign between them.
I will add that the film does not end with the victory of one character but, in order to honor the production’s efforts and power, I will merely leave it at that.
Yes, there are some idiosyncrasies with the initial plot in that the impetus for the Battle Royale Act is to one, decrease the rising population (it is not doing so on a very effective level–forty-one children per year in a nation of millions) and two, deter adolescent crime (the children are picked at random as opposed to the more violent children being selected). Nonetheless, these structural foibles are inconsequential because any reason for the Act’s existence is superficial for those involved. In actually, not proving justification for the Act would have been more fitting because what matters ultimately is not why the Act exists but that it is being utilized and that forty-two children have become existential participants in it as a result.
This edgy, challenging film presents a microcosm in which to explore many aspects of human nature and thought. The philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, politics, etc. of life are all given in toto in a compressed, allegorical form which refuses to submit to the viewer under any conditions. With this, Battle Royale is possibly one of the most important films to be made in the last twenty-five years.
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