Since the release of the first film in 2012,The Hunger Gamesfranchise has become a pop-culture phenomenon. Taking place in a dystopian future where children are forced to take part in a savage fight to the death,The Hunger Gamestapped into our collective fascination with the public’s thirst for blood, as in Ancient Rome. Years beforeThe Hunger Gameshit theaters, or author Suzanne Collins penned its source material, there wasBattle Royale.
Released in 2000 and directed by Kinji Kukasaku,Battle Royaletakes place in a dystopian Japan, one in which students are forced to take part in a fight to the death as a means of being kept in line by an authoritative regime.Battle Royalecertainly draws comparisons toLord of the Flies,as young people are forced to tap into their primal mindset in a bloody battle for the survival of the fittest.Operatic in violence and scope,Battle Royaleexamines the structures of youth culture and the classic struggle between them and authority.
Battle Royale
A Most Dangerous Game
InWilliam Conrad Golding’s novelThe Lord of the Flies, a group of children from a British school become marooned on an island following a plane crash. The students' order and discipline break down into chaos as a power struggle ensues.The degeneration from civilization to savagery and the lines that blur them is just as present inBattle Royale, as an entire class of children is chosen to take part in a bloody contest on an island with their teacher, Kitano (Beat Takeshi), overseeing the savagery.
The scale of violence inBattle Royaleis grandiose in scope and presentation. Yet,there’s something to be said about how it examines how different personality types react to being placed in such an extraordinary event. The students of Kitano’s class who have been chosen to take part in the government-mandated Battle Royale program display the characteristics of adapting, overcoming, or resignation. There’s a dichotomy that exists between the various students, as some take to the contest and engage in the battle of attrition and savage fight to the death, while others cannot overcome their passive nature and become easy prey.There’s a sort of perverse Darwinism inBattle Royale, one that vividly acts out his theory of the survival of the fittest.
If the operatic violence inBattle Royaleand the images of Kitano watching as his students engage in modern-day gladiatorial combat mirror the audiences of Ancient Rome attending the pitched battles of the Colosseum, then the audience is made into a spectator of the bloody contest. As each student succumbs to their fate, their name is displayed with a countdown of how many are left.As one watchesBattle Royale, we find ourselves being able to look away from the screen, wondering what the final outcome might be, and by which creative method the next student will be dispatched.
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The Dynamics of Teenage Hierarchy
It’s easy to compareLord of the FliesandBattle Royale, as both focus on a group of students being taken out of their element and into an environment where they must fight for their survival. However, there is a slight difference between the two that makesBattle Royalesuch a unique offering of a potential dystopian future. The beginning of Golding’s novel illustrates something of a schoolground hierarchy, but this eventually gives way to the students completely giving into an animistic and primal nature.While this certainly carries over intoBattle Royale, with the students adapting to the game they’re forced to participate in, there also exists the hierarchy and cliques that exist within any high school.
As the bloody combat inBattle Royalecontinues, and the death toll continues to mount unimpeded, the students miraculously retain the cliques and demeanor that one might associate with a high school student. IfLord of the Fliesillustrated the degeneration from civilization to savagery, thenBattle Royalecan be seen as a group of people retaining aspects of their humanity despite the tumultuous situation and circumstances that they find themselves in. Through the use of flashbacks,the lives of the studentsbefore they took part in savage combat are juxtaposed with the current situation they’re in. This allows them to bring their relationships and grudges into combat, as more than once, a score is settled between schoolyard rivals.
Remarkably, there’s a dichotomy that takes place inBattle Royale. There’s certainly a grandiose level of violence and death that’s quickly paced and serves as a spectacle for the viewing audience, which almost comes off like a bloody live-action anime at times. However,the interwoven stories that might accompany a typical teen drama, such as romance, bullying, and the pressures of succeeding in academia, add a considerable amount of character depth. These sequences remind the audience that these savage combatants, just a short time ago, were ordinary teenagers navigating the pitfalls of education and adolescence.
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A Legacy of Violence Not Soon Forgotten
It’s been 25 years sinceBattle Royalewas released. In that time,we’ve seen multiple depictions of violence, both in the world we live in and in the manufactured reality that exists in film. Looking atBattle Royalethrough modern hindsight, we can see that violence exists at all levels of society, and, all too often, we’re eager to take in the sights. Visceral and never to be forgotten,Battle Royaleprobes the depth of the human experience and its more violent nature.
