Battle Royale is a government-sanctioned brutal game in which schoolchildren are forced to participate at gunpoint and the threat of extermination. On a desert island, 42 high school students will mercilessly destroy each other for three days using random objects and ingenuity. Only one will return alive from the island.
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I somehow heard out of my ear that they were afraid to release this film by Fukasaku Kinji in Japan – they say, it is too bloody naturalistic, cruel, and besides, it is too cynical. But this is just ridiculous – have you ever watched a non-violent Japanese action movie? It’s just that in Japanese films, it is always ostentatious and theatrical, exaggerated, grotesque – blood sprays like a fountain, brains flow down the wall, comrades with serious faces are funny (but no less bloodthirsty) chopping enemies to pieces. Tarantino played this in interesting way in ‘Kill Bill’: I mean the battle of the Bride with the Lunatic gang and her last parting words to the losers: ‘Survivors can get out, but leave the severed limbs. You lost the fight and now they are mine. ‘
And in general, for some reason, it seems to me that this movie should not be taken seriously, it is rather a parody of a serious action movie, which aims to ridicule the imperial manners of the Land of the Rising Sun with its samurai postulates and the principles that follow from the latest principles, where the concepts of a higher goal, the interests of the state and such a vague concept as ‘patriotism’ (which, as we know, is nothing more than ‘the last refuge of villains’) is placed above human life.
Of course, the death of some of the characters is very tragic and even somewhat poetic, but it is clear that the director is just having fun, and sparing no one at all, sowing bloody showdown scenes with a generous hand.
It must be said that the book by Kosyun Takami, on which the film is directed, is much more interesting, since it pays much more attention to the characters and gives readers a sincere sympathy (or antipathy) for the heroes before sending them to death. An insanely good multivolume manga, which tells the past of almost every (!) Of 42 students with excellent realistic graphics. I think that if an anime series had been shot on the basis of Battle Royale, it would have enjoyed no less popularity than Onizuka or Death Note.
So I get the impression that this movie is more likely not a film adaptation, but a variation on the theme of the book of the same name.
It is impossible not to mention Takeshi Kitano in the role of the battalion commander. With an invariably impenetrable expression on his face in a cheap tracksuit, he leads the bloody ball of his charges in order to rather absurdly and, in principle, peacefully retreat into oblivion at the very end.
The film also has one, but a significant drawback – all forty-odd teenagers wear the same uniform and are practically indistinguishable in appearance, so very soon you confuse all the characters and forget which of them is who.
Just don’t watch ‘Battle Royale 2’ – imbued with leftist ideology, a custom-made fake.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (83.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audio
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH.
