Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder why
there aren’t more movies involving children killing children.
Well,
perhaps the above statement is a bit of a paradox because of the bit of a
paradox that intermingles with the kind of movies that have children spill the
blood of other children, and that’s the fact that there movies typically cannot
be seen by children because they are possibly too graphic and ‘traumatic’ for
children. So that bit of a paradox exists in the fact that the very actors
acting in the film, present in all the scenes with blood and murder and the
blood of children and the murder of children, isn’t legally able to actually
see the movie. A bit of a conundrum, really.
That
said, Battle Royale is definitely a movie filled with blood and murder and
gore, and almost entirely the blood and murder and gore of little children by
little children. So it really is the kind of family-friendly movie you should
totally watch with you little kid, niece, nephew, brother or sister, and have
them come out perfectly sane and happy. Except maybe for the part where he or
she tries to kill you, or thinks you are trying to kill him/her. Well, you see,
I actually believe in the independence of media from violence in children, and
all that hocus pocus, but what I’m saying is something obvious which I don’t
have to elaborate upon because you are wasting your time by reading an argument
that is obvious and has been going on for so long that I don’t want to break
into a debate yet again regarding media and violence, so it’s just best if I
stop talking about this. Or writing. Or typing.
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| You know things are a bit grim when this is pretty much a movie's opening shot. |
The
premise of Battle Royale and the system established for the err… Battle Royale
is an interesting one that is perhaps best described as a cross between a
gladiatorial arena and an uninhabited vacation spot. You have an assortment of
weapons both silly and deadly littering the locale like a flock of pigeons, and
you get to enjoy the rolling green scenery, made further beautiful by those
lovely red highlights which seem to be flowing from children lying strangely still
and dismembered.
“How
violent is the film?” you ask innocently, and I say that it is fairly violent.
There has been worse before, both in the good and bad sense of the word
‘worse’, though the fact that they are little children being torn to shreds
might amp the ‘worse’ rating up a bit in people’s books… in both the good and
the bad sense, I suppose. It’s brutal and grisly and fountainous, but it seems
to straddle this thin line that exists between being violent and being ‘silly
nilly arteries are oil wells’. Some people might clutch their stomachs and moan
that it’s too much, and it perhaps is, but it also isn’t. Yes, it’s very
violent but it isn’t very violent, it’s bloody but not that bloody.
If
the above sentences were a bit perplexing then perhaps I have done a good job
of making you emulate my initial reaction to the movie. It was a whole lot of
‘what?’ followed by a bit of ‘what the fuck?’ alongside a bit of ‘FUCK!’ and a
fine dash of ‘Oooo’. Despite the simple, yet delicious, premise there’s a lot
going on in the movie. Which is good, till you realise that most of what’s
going on is also somewhat alien, and sometimes as absurd as blue whales reading
diaries to tonfa wielding chipmunks who serve Cthulu’s eldest niece’s hamster.
Which can be a bit a bit… jarring if you enter the movie like me, expecting a
grim and serious epic. It leaps around between genres and tones, without really
moving, managing to be a grim and serious drama, a school drama, a social
satire and a dark comedy all in the same breath, if not the same millisecond of
a gasp.
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| This overly cutesy-ily done 'Guide' is perhaps the best part of the movie. |
The
movie is trying to criticize-by-exposure, and the prime thing being targeted
here is youth Japanese culture, by having the absurdity of their culture
present in full force to the extent that it’s possible for the movie to mislead
you into believing that it wants you to take it seriously. I’m writing/typing
in air right now, since this absurdity and oddity is best seen to be
understood, since you’re likely going to have the identical reaction of
‘erkwa?’ to it.
 |
| It might be deserted, but at least it's not a desert! Haha! Right? |
Besides
this criticism there are some interesting themes and raises some interesting
questions, about the education system, ‘disciplining’ children, the military
nature of education, and the conflict between older generations and newer
generations moving away from past culture and tradition. These themes and
questions have the potential to be profo- Shotgun? Hell yeah! The movie has a
lot of action, and fairly good action at that, it might not match up well to
today’s standards, but abrupt and ‘over before it started’ nature fits the
brutality of the setting well. Though the fact that some of them can wield a
handgun with relatively high skill is a bit perplexing when you’re sure that
they have never touched one before, which might lead you into some
introspective doubt regarding if this is another criticism of youth power
fantasy or something, or whether the directed just wanted some awesome action
with some awesome shots with awesome accuracy to make for some awesome
spectacle. You see, one of the problem I had was that I started to introspect
on this ‘awesomeness’ that seemed to crop up, pondering whether it had some
other mysterious meaning or if it was trying to criticise something. I like to
believe it was, in part, somewhat… even though I enjoyed it myself and
exclaimed at intervals when heads go rolling and blood goes fountainous.
 |
| Characterization is bare-bones, but it's decent enough. |
The
characters are bare bones caricatures… but they work, and the little
characterisation squeezed in just barely enough to make the characters
understandable enough, allowing you to distinguish between them when things get
hectic. But despite all the satire and criticism-by-exposure I mentioned above,
you can’t help but scratch your noggin a little when some characters just seem
to suffer from a major lapse of logic or sanity or both. And when I was
watching it initially the most recurring reaction on my part was ‘eh, what?’
which happened quite the number of times, and that’s not including the absurd
parts of it that elicited more exciting reactions, often in all caps if push
came to shove.
 |
| It's all a very brutal affair. |
I
was actually disappointed by the movie when I just finished watching it. I felt
the plot could have used more exposition regarding the system, what we got is
sufficient, but I just hungered for more, though it might just be because I’m a
bit of an exposition junkie who often logs onto Wikia pages to just overdose on
exposition till my eyes turn read, my motor control goes whack and my mind
begins to slip.
“How high are you, bro?” is a question I
tend to regularly get in response to my condition, to which I respond with a
resplendent ,”Expanded Universe, bro.” But what truly confuses me about my
response is the fact that I always include the ‘bro’, even when I’m talking to
a girl, which is once every time Pluto decides to become a planet again and
reunite with his old family, but that’s beside the point.
 |
| Like I said, it gets pretty absurd in spots. |
Though
in retrospect I actually find myself appreciating the movie and its little
nuances and its little kinks, for better and for worse. It’s truly an odd
oddity, this movie, one that tries to criticise overused tropes by using them
to the point of absurdity and beyond, which becomes the very thing it seeks to
talk against, while also trying to talk about several other things amidst its
carnage, its glorious carnage.
 |
| Like I said... |
All
in all, I’d say it’s definitely a movie you should plunge into without any established
expectations or views or opinions, and one you just let upon yourself. Of
course, you have to be ready to stomach child-on-child brutality to watch it,
but that’s also what makes it so gleeful.
“Why make something about children if
children can’t experience it?” you say with a walrus on your shoulders.
I reply, “Go talk to Lord of the Flies and
Clockwork Orange, please.”
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