Have you ever killed your best friend?

[Currently reading David Hume's A Treatise on Human Nature]
[Currently listening to Broken Social Scene's Shampoo Suicide]

Via Video Blog
Fei strongly recommended that I watch the Japanese horror film Battle Royale (I was telling him about how I thoroughly enjoyed watching Saw and Saw 2, and he thought - not incorrectly - that I might also like Battle Royale), and he managed to arouse sufficient interest in me by efficiently furnishing me with an intriguing synopsis. So I went online last night and found that the entire movie was available on Google Video.

The plot is rather unbelievably far-fetched, but it is nevertheless quite a creative piece of work - it is quietly disturbing and the psychological effects are very likely to stay with you long after the show is over. In a fictional universe, Japan was facing what was unanimously deemed by government officials to be the greatest debacle ever suffered by the country: Japanese youth were becoming increasingly meek and useless, and they were generally considered to be ignominious weaklings. In order to pique their fighting spirits (and, at the same time, to eradicate those who proved themselves unworthy), the leaders came up with an extremely radical solution - they introduced a project known as 'Battle Royale'.

They selected a graduating class that consisted of some of the worst students in the nation, and they escorted these young people to an isolated island after rendering them unconscious. When these students finally woke up, they realised that all of them had tracking devices tied around their necks. They were instructed to murder one another - at the end of 3 days, the sole survivor would get to return to Japan and re-submerge himself into the mainstream society. If, by the deadline (in every sense of the word), there were still more than one living persons, the tracking devices would explode and kill everyone. (Unbeknownst to them, microphones were also embedded in these tracking devices, so all their conversations were completely heard by the people monitoring the programme.) The island was demarcated into several zones, and at every hour a different area would be labelled as the danger zone - anyone who remained in these regions would be immediately killed. The names of the deceased would be announced every morning. Each student was given a duffel bag containing a map, a compass, some food and water, as well as a random weapon or equipment. (The protagonist was given the metal lid of a pot. Somehow I found that weirdly hilarious.)

This movie reminded me somewhat of Lord of the Flies, though adults acted as the comforting epitome of civilisation in Golding's classic, whereas in the movie, it was the adults who provided an impetus to the violent release of the darkest sadistic forces deeply hidden in the most primal recesses of human nature. The grown-ups decided that only way to guarantee a bright promising future for Japan was to inspire the younger generations to unleash unreservedly their basic instincts to kill and to realise their insatiable inborn appetite for blood. Only then would the future be soundly safeguarded by soldiers and not cowards.

After the game began, the students became inextricably embroiled in a frightening web of deceit and betrayal. Interaction between the students soon began to be driven by profound mutual distrust and unknown agendas. It was simply chilling to watch how they engaged in relentless cat-and-mouse chases. Each individual responded differently to the predicament, and it lent some interesting insights into the diversity of human psychology. While some instantly sank into a killing frenzy, some chose to commit suicide rather than to forsake their conscience, and still more resisted courageously - either passively (by merely choosing not to kill, while hoping fervently against hope that their fates would somehow miraculously be reversed eventually) or actively (by diligently thinking of means and ways to disrupt the operation). There was a memorably striking scene in the film: the prettiest girl - on whom many boys had a crush - offered to copulate with her suitors on the condition that they allowed her to kill them once the intercourse was over. Two boys agreed, and they both died in the end. It was a highly rational decision to make - even if they had refused, they most likely would have been killed by others anyway. Since chances were that they could not escape death, then they might as well make love to the beautiful girl whom they'd always greatly admired, and end their lives in depressing ecstasy. At least the last thing they did on Earth was a poignantly bittersweet affair. It was devastating, but it was also undeniably fair and painfully human.

The choice of background music was fairly compatible with the film - the usually delightful instrumental pieces lent a macabre ambience to the show. But one serious flaw plagued the movie - its rather unsuccessful attempts at characterisation. In one scene, the lead actress Noriko woke up from a dream - in her dream she was taking a stroll with one of the main executors of the plan, and she sensed that he was stung by an unremitting sense of loneliness. She told a friend about it, and her words were overheard by the leader, who then felt touched that he had found a confidante in her. (By the way, at the end of the film, he tried to provoke her into killing him - this was really curious, and carried a lot of potential for meaningful interpretations. I have my own ideas, but they are not exactly fleshed out yet, and I have yet to string them together coherently.) However, there was very little narration of his supposed loneliness - what was the original source of it? What was the compelling reason behind it? The film did not provide any satisfactory answer. His story was not convincingly and fully developed, and thus appeared annoyingly contrived, and failed to enrapture. There were some possibly touching moments, but these were all regrettably ruined by the woeful lack of emotional depth (not to mention the actors' unseasoned performances). Interestingly, and perhaps rather ironically, the most emotionally gripping parts of the film were not deliberately crafted to be so - their piercing quality arose inadvertently from the portrayal of moral crises and human dilemmas.

In general, the show is reasonably enjoyable, though it is definitely nothing awesomely fantastic. But if you want your dose of semi-intellectual gore, then this is certainly a must-watch.

Rating: 6.5 stars out of 10.