Battle Royale

Just watched Battle Royale. (the first one… I’m behind times) The plot: Apparently teenagers are getting more and more rebellion. They boycott the education system and generally make fun of adults. So adults, fearing for their retirement plans, passed the Fifth Education Reform Act. Also known as the Battle Royale Act. Every year, a class of forty 7th graders is choosen out of the country’s 43000 and sent to a deserted island. They are given weapons and rations to kill each other for 3 days until only one remains. If more than two survives by the end of the match, the pendant they wear on their neck explodes and no one wins.

Now, I wouldn’t go into detail about the logically flawed premises because it’ll take a few hours for me to write them out, but one thing: the plot works.

Despite the stupid plot premises and the generally pointless bloodiness, Battle Royale does present some pretty valid social problems, if you can actually take your mind off the killing and think about it. The main theme is played out by the classes form teacher, who is in charged of over-seeing the game, and the girl Noriko, who was the only one that showed any kindness to him. The other main driving theme of the show revolves around trust and survival. The morals versus the instincts. There are people who killed in the game right from the start because they wanted to live. And there are those that attempted to form alliances. I think the best example of the movie’s theme at work is the lighthouse incident. Stop reading if you don’t want spoilers.

SPOILERS
A classmate tried to kill the main character, Shuya, but resulted in his own death due to an accident. A girl sees the aftermath and thought that Shuya killed someone, she ran off. Sometime later, Shuya was rescued after being forced off a cliff and brought to a lighthouse, where a group have girls have based themselves and worked together. Including that girl who saw the accident. The girl tried to poison Shuya’s food, another girl ate it by chance and died. Immediately the alliance falls apart and they suspect one another of the poisoning. Gunfight follows and all but the girl who poisoned the food died. This took place in a matter of seconds… So anyhow the girl jumped off the lighthouse and killed herself too.
ENDSPOILERS

Makes you wonder, if you were part of the game, would you kill? A few of them commited suicide immediately after the game started because they didn’t want to be part of it. A few of them killed immediately and by the truckloads. A few of them tried to work things out peacefully and form an alliance to break the game. Everyone dies, except…