For those of us who live in North America, Kinji
Fukasaku's youth-oriented bloodbath Battle Royale doesn't officially exist,
though the legions of cultists who have seen special screenings or own
bootlegged or imported DVDs know otherwise. There's always been a huge audience
for it here in the States, and references abound in American pop culture, from
Quentin Tarantino's casting of evil schoolgirl Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo Yubari
in Kill Bill
to The Flaming Lips' use of Battle Royale footage as a backdrop for its Yoshimi
Battles The Pink Robots tour. Yet for a variety of reasons, the film has never been
distributed in the U.S. or on non-import DVD, leading some to speculate,
falsely, that it was banned here. The real story is actually much more
complicated to sort out.
There was a potentially enormous audience in the
U.S. for Battle Royale, but a conflation of factors kept it off screens. The biggest
problem was that the Japanese label Toei wanted more money for it ($1-$2
million upfront) than anyone was willing to give, and tougher still, the
company expected a wide release along the lines of Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon. I
think that for the right distributor, those conditions were actually something
of a bargain, judging by Battle Royale's runaway popularity as a book, a manga
line, and a film in Japan. Trouble is, the right distributor didn't and doesn't
exist. The only distributors capable of releasing the film on a Crouching
Tiger
scale are the boutique arms of major studios like Sony and Disney, and the
film's premise of 15-year-old kids fighting to the death was way too toxic,
especially in a country rife with school shootings. There was no guarantee that
the ratings board would play along, either; though the MPAA isn't known for
handing out NC-17 ratings for violence alone, it seems likely they'd have
singled this movie out. A smaller, independent distributor might have been able
to adopt the film, but exhibition on more than just a handful of arthouse
screens would have been highly unlikely, given the subject matter. (The only
possible middle-of-the-road exception is Lionsgate, an independent with the capital
to release such a movie on a large scale, but clearly that didn't happen,
either.)
I first saw Battle Royale at a one-night-only
screening at Facets Cinematheque here in Chicago. There was a special, higher admission
price for the film, and a rare sell-out crowd in attendance, but even so, it was
my understanding that Facets was still showing it at a loss. I was later
shocked to discover that Tartan Asia Extreme had released a high-quality
import-only DVD designed specifically for NTSC players, but it says something
that I got my copy at Amoeba Records in San Francisco, not at the local Best
Buy. It's much easier to see now, but as a cult phenomenon, there's still sort
of a backroom, secret-handshake quality to the film, and that's added a layer
of mystique that nearly makes up for its lack of mass-market accessibility.
As high concepts go, Battle Royale hits the sweet spot: It's Lord Of The Flies
meets The Most Dangerous Game meets perhaps the cruelest year of teenage life,
which would have a Darwinian quality even without the aid of axes and
semi-automatics. Add to that ultra-violence, Japanese schoolgirls, and Takeshi
Kitano, add water and stir, and voila, you have the ingredients for an instant
cult classic.
Based on Koushun Takami's wildly popular
book—which I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read—the film taps into
millennial anxieties about what the nation's youth have in store. In a
near-future police state, the government has passed a law called the Millennium
Educational Reform Act (otherwise known as the "Battle Royale Act") designed to
suppress teenage rebellion. The law sounds like the most entertaining reality
show never made: Every year, a random class is rounded up on a deserted island
and forced to slaughter each other until one person remains. In order to ensure
they do as they're told, all the students are drugged and fitted with necklaces
that monitor their pulse and location, and will explode if they hide away in
constantly shifting "danger zones" on their maps, or if more than one of them
survives after a three-day period. In this NSFW scene, a new group gets their
instructions from a former teacher—played by the steely Takeshi Kitano—and
from a bubbly video tour guide who explains the rules. (Rule #1: If you're ever
forced to stand on tarped-over floor, keep your mouth shut.):
Once Kitano resumes the video, it's explained that
the 41 students present are each to receive a "survival kit" that includes
food, water, a map, a compass, and one weapon, which will range from a machine
gun to a pot lid. One by one, they dash off into the night, forced to come to
terms with their roles as guinea pigs in a sadistic sociological experiment.
Some quickly embrace the inevitable, including a kid who tries picking off his
fellow students with a crossbow immediately after leaving the building. Others
refuse to participate in the bloodletting, and commit suicide instead. Still
more form tentative alliances, like techies who try to hack the computer
monitoring system and instigate a mini-revolution, or girls who hole up
peacefully in a lighthouse. Then there are a couple of strange, glowering
"transfer students," who look considerably older than the other kids and have
unknown agendas.
Outside the fray are a pair of sweet-natured
peaceniks named Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko (Aki Maeda), armed with a
pot lid and a flashlight, respectively. They care about each other and are
determined to survive together, in spite of the harsh reality that one of them
will have to be killed in order for the other to live. Needless to say, this is
not the foundation for a trusting relationship, especially once one of the
transfer students, the unusually resourceful Kawada (Taro Yamamodo), becomes
friendly with them. Shuya and Noriko can only dodge the inevitable for so long;
when it comes time to kill or be killed, how do they preserve their honor and
innocence, let alone their lives?
Battle Royale is many things at once: A grand metaphor
for the cruel cliques and hierarchies that govern teenage life; a statement about
the chasm between the older and younger generations; a rebellious salvo against
fascism and government control; and a stinging, no-holds-barred action film
that's like manga come to life. Watching 15-year-olds savagely murder other
15-year-olds sounds irredeemably perverse as entertainment, like The Running
Man for
kidz. But because the whole situation is so thoroughly couched in
metaphor—and because Fukasaku aligns himself so strongly with the
youth—the film remains surprisingly palatable, even fun, because there
are only abstract ideas connecting what happens in the film to reality. Elephant this ain't.
Some might be surprised to learn that the late
Fukasaku was 70 years old when he directed Battle Royale, and it was a triumphant
return to form for a filmmaker who built his career on super-stylish (and often
campy) yakuza movies and youth pictures from the late '60s and early '70s, like Black Lizard, Battles Without Honor And Humanity, Blackmail Is My Life, and If You Were
Young: Rage.
Importing the freewheeling style of the French New Wave and the hip detachment
of American noir, Fukasaku sympathized most with young people whose dreams are
extinguished before they come of age. It was remarkable to see Fukasaku, 30
years past his exuberant prime, invest the same energy and attitude into a film
about kids several generations removed from him. Clearly, he's a man who never
reached his Andy Rooney phase.
Having 42 school-kids knock each other off with
varied weaponry would probably be enough for a passable genre movie, but Battle
Royale
does a surprisingly subtle job of delineating between the varied personalities
and alliances that make up the average classroom. I've joked that you can't
throw a rock in Japan without hitting a disaffected teenager, but even
similarly disaffected kids have many different temperaments, and the film's situation
helps bring them out of their shells and shows us who they really are. Their
age is crucial: At 15, kids no longer need hand-holding from adults, but they
don't have the confidence and self-possession of 18-year-olds, either, and
their 'tweener status leads to awkward interactions and a hive mentality. The
most mature among them have the good sense either not to participate in the
violence—like Shuya and Noriko, or those who commit suicide—or to
direct the violence toward the real perpetrators, like the MacGyver-like
techies who try to combat the authorities.
Of course, as in any class, there are nasty little
rivalries, awkward love connections, and monstrous queen bees, and the
fight-to-the-death conflict intensifies their relationships tenfold. Suddenly,
enemies have license to resolve their grievances with extreme prejudice, and
the bonds of even the closest friendships are tested. As a sociological
experiment, it's right out of Lord Of The Flies, only here, bloody chaos
isn't the result of order breaking down, but a condition mandated by the state.
In this infamous and deeply ironic scene, the peaceful accord reached by a
group of girlfriends holed up in a lighthouse gets tested when one of them
decides to play saboteur:
Battle Royale isn't perfect: The repeated flashbacks are
often hasty, expository shortcuts; the plot muddies up a bit in the final
third; and some of the day-for-night photography looks pale and amateurish. Yet
the film has vitality and excitement, too, and speaks to the youth of the day
with much the same galvanizing power as classics like If…. and A Clockwork Orange. (There are a handful of
Kubrickian music cues, too, courtesy of Bach, Verdi, and Schubert.) Though it
has the veneer of cool that marked Fukasaku's work in his prime, the film keeps
its finger on the pulse and connects in a disarmingly sincere way with
uncertain youths poised at the turn of the millennium. Fukasaku doesn't feel
any more optimistic about their futures in 2000 than he did 30 years earlier,
but at least the old man's on their side.
Coming Soon:
Next week: Dead Man
June 12: Wet Hot American Summer
June 19: The Boondock Saints (with special guest Overnight)
June 26: Punch-Drunk Love