FILM REVIEW - BATTLE
ROYALE
This is possibly the most violent
film I have ever seen and it
is terrific, although also depressing - you'd expect more black comedy
of which there is some but it's mostly very serious. In a not too distant
future Japan, juvenile delinquency and truancy are so rife that the
authorities have decided to set an example by taking the worst offending
school's worst class to an island, and making them kill each other off to
the last kid standing with a variety of weapons, some kids get machine
guns, others hand pistols, knives, or seemingly useless apparatus, -
they are each fitted with a FORTRESS style collar which will explode if they
try to escape or do not keep moving to the various kill zones - this
basically stops them hiding in a cave until everyone else has seen each
other off, they are goaded on with chilling Goebbels-Lord Haw-Haw
propaganda speeches by their own teacher, who also seems to have a
perverse fixation on one particular female student, Its basic Lord Of The
Flies stuff as some kids try to avoid fighting, others take to it with
extreme passion and some try to work together in teams but grow
increasingly paranoid towards one another.... etc. From the start when lead
to believe they are on an end of term school outing when they are gassed
unconscious on the bus you know this is going to be seriously grim viewing
and so it stays throughout - there is one odd touch that gives it a weird
touch of humour too, the whole thing is set to a classical music score,
mostly Bach's air on a G string for many killings - that made me think of
those old Happiness Is A Cigar called Hamlet ads that also used this tune.
Good film, the most controversial since Clockwork Orange
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