Battle Royale!!

BATTLE ROYALE:

Writer: Koushun Takami and Kenta Fukasaku
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Key cast: Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda
Genre: Action/thriller
Themes: Friendships
Release: September 2001

Narrative:
Battle Royale is a film about a new law in Japan which forces students to fight and kill each other. The story is focused on a boy and a girl who make a promise to stick with each other throughout the event whilst also trying to escape the game. The film also is focused around how the children either stay together or turn against one another, testing the true friendship between the students.

Key Scenes:
An important scene within Battle Royale is at 1 hour and 13 minutes into the film where a group of girls who where friends turn on each other. This is important as it is suggesting to the audience that even though they were best friends they all didn't trust one another and would kill them in order to stay alive. This is important as it emphasises the trust and bond between the main couple Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa as they chose to keep their promise. Even though the girls try and keep themselves alive by trying to kill the traitor they all end up dead. This also shows to the audience that Nanahara and Nakagawa have more chance of survival as they have each other.

Compare:
A film similar to Battle Royale is the Hunger Games. In both films children are forced to fight to the death due to the law which has been set by people who have the most control over the country. Although the two films do have some differences. For example, Battle Royale exists because the it is a law in Japan but in Hunger games the actual Hunger Games is purely for the rich people's entertainment. These two films are very similar as they have the same story line and they both follow the same idea that there is only one winner. The only difference is that Hunger Games explains more why the event exists where as it Battle Royale it just explains that it is a new law in Japan.