Battle Royale (film)
(Redirected from Battle Royale)
Battle Royale (or Batoru rowaiaru) is a 2000 film about 42 ninth-graders taken to an island, given random weapons, and forced to kill each other until one survivor remains as part of a government program. To ensure their cooperation, they've been fitted with explosive collars that explode when they break a rule.
- Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Written by Kenta Fukasaku and Koshun Takami, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami.
Shuya Nanahara
[edit]- [to Noriko Nakagawa] I'm weak, I'm useless, but I'll stay by your side; I'll protect you.
Mitsuko Souma
[edit]- What's wrong with killing? Everybody's got their reasons.
Shogo Kawada
[edit]- There's a way out of this game. Kill yourselves together, here, now. If you can't do that, then don't trust anyone... just run.
Teacher Kitano
[edit]- So today's lesson is...you kill each other off until there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules!
Training Video Girl
[edit]- Each weapon is different. Not just guns or knives either! It is random so maybe you will get lucky, maybe not. It eliminates natural advantages. [picks up axe] Oooh. This one is SUPER lucky.
Dialogue
[edit]- Kyouichi Motobuchi: If I survive, may I go home?
- Teacher Kitano: Sure, but only if everyone else is dead. Mimura?
- Shinji Mimura: How were we chosen?
- Kitano: By impartial lottery.
- Mimura: One more.
- Kitano: Sure.
- Mimura: Why are you doing this?
- Kitano: It's your own damn fault. You guys mock grown-ups. Go ahead and mock us, but don't you forget: life is a game, so fight for survival and find out if you're worth it.
- [Shogo has just finished bandaging Noriko's leg]
- Shuya Nanahara: You know a lot about medicine.
- Shogo Kawada: Well, my father was a doctor.
- Shogo Kawada: [Noriko wakes up abruptly] You okay?
- Noriko Nakagawa: I had a dream...
- Kawada: What dream?
- Nakagawa: I was alone with Kitano on an empty riverbank.
- Kawada: Must've been scary.
- Nakagawa: But Kitano just seemed lonely.
- Kawada: Hmmm.
- Nakagawa: Before this, I always just thought of myself as normal. I'd have a normal marriage, age normally, just like my mom... but when this game started, I realized - it's just that I was sheltered.
- Kawada: Some things are better not to know.
- Hiroki Sugimura: I've been in love with you for a long, long time...
- Kayoko Kotohiki: [cries] What am I supposed to do now?
- Mitsuko Souma: Die.
- Shogo Kawada: Meeting you guys, I finally solved the riddle of Keiko's smile.
- Noriko Nakagawa: What's the answer?
- Kawada: Her parting words - Thank you - and then...
- Shuya Nanahara: And then? [Kawada drops his cigarette] Kawada!
- Nakagawa: Kawada!
- Kawada: And then - I'm glad I found true friends.
Taglines
[edit]- Could you kill your best friend?
- One Dead. 41 To Go.
- 42 Students, Three Days, One Survivor, No Rules.
- Today, I killed my best friend.
- Have you ever killed your best friend?
About Battle Royale (film)
[edit]- Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins came from a military family. But Battle Royale director Kinji Fukasaku actually survived World War II. He was just a teenager himself when he was put to work in a munitions factory in Japan.
"It was bombed, a lot," Hendrix says. "And one of his jobs, at the age of 15, was to take a wheelbarrow around the factory and pick up body parts after bombing raids."
The experience left Fukasaku with a lasting abhorrence of war — and a profound sense of betrayal by grownups that persisted into his own adulthood. And it fueled his decision to film Battle Royale, which was both highly controversial and a massive theatrical hit when it was released in Japan, despite a rating that kept young teenagers from seeing it. That irritated the director, says Hendrix.
"He gave a very famous statement to the press where he said, 'Kids, if you have the courage, you can sneak in. And I encourage you to do so.'" - Hendrix says one of the most important things Battle Royale and The Hunger Games share is the idea of teenagers trapped in a ruined society, coerced by grownups into doing horrible things.
Even so, they both make it clear — there's nothing more utopian than a teenager. Even in a dystopia.
- Grady Hendrix in "'Battle,' 'Games': Cold Brutality A Common Theme" by Nedia Ulaby, All Things Considered, NPR, March 21, 2012
Cast
[edit]- Tatsuya Fujiwara — Shuya Nanahara (Boy #15)
- Aki Maeda — Noriko Nakagawa (Girl #15)
- Taro Yamamoto — Shogo Kawada (Boy #5)
- Chiaki Kuriyama — Takako Chigusa (Girl #13)
- Kou Shibasaki — Mitsuko Souma (Girl #11)
- Beat Takeshi — Teacher Kitano
External links
[edit]
- Battle Royale quotes at the Internet Movie Database
- Battle Royale at Rotten Tomatoes