Scoot had mentioned this movie several times over the course of the past few years. I finally rented it from Netflix this week. I wasn't entirely too sure what to expect from the film. I had seen flicks such as The Suicide Club, so I knew how the violence in Japanese films can be a little over the top in a very surreal/animated way. And of course, there are the social-cultural-political references that fly over my head, BUT- Battle Royale was not like that. The setup is fairly simple (yet kinda difficult to grasp at the same time): It takes place during times of unrest and economic lows. The school children have even become bastards by abusing their teachers and refusing to go to school. (So in other words, it's like some of the public schools here....oooh, bad joke.) As a result, the gov'ment decides to enact the Battle Royale Act- a randomly selected class is dropped on an island where they must kill each other until 1 remains. (How this deals with the skipping class, I don't know. I suppose the theory is "Bastards don't deserve to live".) They have 3 days to complete this task; if, after 3 days, there is no winner, the collars attached to their necks with explode. Lovely, eh? So what ensues is a lot of crazy killing, paranoia, and desperate survival tactics. I found interesting the undercurrent activity of "BFF!" and then the supposed best friends would turn on each other. And of course, it provides food for thought by reflecting on the ol' "What would I do in this situation? Is friendship more important than one's life?"
Anyway, it was definitely worth the watch and managed to be entertaining, thought-provoking, horrific, and disturbing all in one package.