Battle Royale
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Battle Royale (Katakana: バトル・ロワイアル or Batoru rowaiaru) by Japanese author Koushun Takami, is a dystopian thriller about a government killing "program" involving children. It was first published in Japan in April 1999, and it is one of Japan's best-selling - and most controversial - novels. It later formed the basis for a popular movie (which spawned a sequel), and has been adapted as a manga series (spawning 15 issues, currently being adapted into English).
An English translation of the novel was published by Viz in 2004.
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Plot overview
Battle Royale is set in a dystopian future Japan (now called The Republic of Greater East Asia) in which a group of middle school students are chosen to participate in a death game after the government has passed an act to deal with overpopulation and unmotivated students.
A randomly-selected class of ninth-grade students (in the film version two are "exchange students") are taken unwillingly to a small isolated island. Each student is given a map, bread and water, and a randomly allocated weapon. Some students get "weapons" such as binoculars and frying pans, but others get swords, guns and grenades. The students are forced to kill each other until only one survivor remains. (In the film version they are given a time limit of three days, after which all survivors will die; in the novel no time limit is set, but at least one student has to die each 24 hours otherwise all remaining contestants die). Each student is forced to wear a special collar which will explode when they break a rule (or, in the case of the novel, 24 hours passes without a fatality). Friends and lovers are forced to set their emotions aside as the bloody battle ensues.
The Program begins with 42 teenagers competing. Two are killed as examples before the game officially begins: one boy for challenging the man supervising the Program, one girl for talking out of turn. The novel follows the remaining 40 teens as they react to their situation in varying ways. Some commit suicide, while others obey the rules and begin killing each other. Three groups of students take neither route: One group of girls takes refuge in a lighthouse and decides not to take part in the killing, but end up killing each other anyway; a group of boys, led by a computer whiz whose uncle was an anarchist, tries to hack into the Program's computer system and destroy the control center with explosives; and a boy and girl join up with an older boy who was the sole survivor of a previous Program. This last group eventually becomes the focus of the story, and they are the only ones who end up surviving (although the older boy dies of injuries afterwards). The story of Shuya, the young male survivor, continues in the film Battle Royale II: Requiem.
The story has some parallels to the story The Most Dangerous Game, as well as the William G. Golding novel Lord of the Flies and the Stephen King novels The Long Walk and Rage as well as the Running Man, which was also made into a movie. Takami is an admirer of King, and named the students' hometown and school Shiroiwa, which translates to "Castle Rock", the name of a town frequently used by King as a setting for his stories. King, in turn, had borrowed the name from a location in Golding's novel. (One might also find weak similarities to Robert Heinlein's novel Tunnel in the Sky.)
Battle Royale was generally well received among critics who appreciated it as a satire of the Japanese education system and a metaphor for the perpetuation of violence in today's teenage generation. It is also considered a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world.
Manga
A serialized manga adaptation of Battle Royale, written by Takami and Masayuki Taguchi, was published in Japan by Akita Publishing. An English-language adaptation of the publication by Keith Giffen, which does not completely follow the original, is currently being published in multi-volume format by TokyoPop.
The manga follows the plot of the novel fairly closely, but also expands on the backstory of each of the students. It is also far more sexually graphic than the novel and film versions, and is also noted for its intense, gory violence. The name of the main character is spelled Shuuya in this version (rather than "Shuya" as it is spelled in the novel).
Film
Battle Royale was later adapted for the screen by Kenta Fukasaku and directed by his father, director Kinji Fukasaku, and premiered in Japan on December 16, 2000.
Takeshi Kitano stars in the film, along with a cast including Tatsuya Fujiwara, Kō Shibasaki, Chiaki Kuriyama, Taro Yamamoto, Masanobu Ando, and Maeda Aki. A sequel, Battle Royale II: Requiem was released in 2003.
The film aroused much controversy. Some educators and politicians objected to the violence depicted in the film because of the large number of children involved. Attempts by these politicans to have the film banned in Japan failed, however, and it was released with an R-15 rating to tremendous box office success.
A Special Edition later released was actually more gory than the original, contrary to it being advertised as more "toned down" to suit the general public's taste. CGI blood enhancement and additional close-ups and extra sound effects emphasized the violence. This version also includes more character development, with a fragmented basketball scene showing the unity of the class and a flashback sequence involving a pedophile revealing the motives behind Mitsuko Souma's action in the game (a plot detail from the book which was left out of the original film adaptation). Also featured is an additional ending sequence which highlights some of the key features of the film.
The soundtrack, composed by Masamichi Amano and performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, features several pieces of classical music. The end credits are accompanied by Dragon Ash's "Shizuka na Hibi no Kaidan Wo" (静かな日々の階段を The Stairs of Quiet Days), which does not appear on the soundtrack.
The movie follows the plot and circumstances of the novel fairly closely, with a few notable differences. In the movie, the man in charge of the program (and who kills two students at the beginning) is actually one of the class' teachers. In the book and manga versions, the character has no prior connection with the class. The movie also establishes a connection between the teacher and Noriko, one of the students, which would carry over into the second film; this element is absent from the novel.
Chiaki Kuriyama's performance in this film caught the attention of American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who subsequently cast her as Go-Go Yubari in his film, Kill Bill Vol. 1. Upcoming Films include Azumi 2: Death or Love, a samurai movie and Yôkai daisensô, a fantasy film by Takashi Miike.
Status of distribution in USA
Despite rumors to the contrary, the film is not banned within the USA. Rather, there had never been a distribution agreement released due to the controversial nature of the film and supposedly unreasonable distribution terms specified by Toei, specifically the price of distribution being somewhere between 1-2 million dollars and that it must be a wide release on the order of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. These two stipulations put it outside of the range of most smaller movie distributors, and the larger distributors would not handle the film. Therefore, technically the film is not banned within the USA, but neither does a local distributor for it exist.
American viewers can still view this movie by buying regionless DVDs available of this film, provided they are in NTSC format.
A detailed explanation (http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/movie/banned.html) can be found at BattleRoyaleFilm.com (http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/).
Issues in translation
There are some minor issues in subtitling in the movie. Perhaps the most apparent to most people is that the subtitles are often grainy and difficult to see on some editions of the film, particularly VHS and VCD versions. The situation is slightly better on some DVD copies, where the subtitles are programmed in rather than burned in, although the translations on the Special Edition DVDs varies greatly, for instance between the UK Tartan release and the Korean Starmax release. One place where the subtitles lose some of the meaning of the original is an important scene in the movie (with the seven girls at the lighthouse) where the breakdown of civility is conveyed using uniquely Japanese features (concerning levels of politeness) of the Japanese language.
External links
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- The Battle Royale Fanlisting (http://www.overstuffed-closet.net/battleroyale)
- Fan site (http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/)
- Battle Royale forum (http://www.battleroyaleforum.com/)bg:Кралска битка
de:Battle Royale fr:Battle royale lt:Karališkas mūšis nl:Battle Royale no:Battle Royale ja:バトル・ロワイアル zh:大逃杀