Japan at the dawn of a new millennium. The country is in a state of chaos, violence by rebellious teenagers in schools is completely out of control. The government hits back with a new law: Battle Royale. Every year a school class picked at random will be cast away on an abandoned island to fight it out amongst themselves. It lasts three days, everyone gets food, water and a weapon, ONLY ONE MAY SURVIVE. Veteran director Kinji Fukasaku is responsible for some of his country's best post-WWII yakuza films. Acknowledged by Quentin Tarantino and John Woo as a key influence, with BATTLE ROYALE, Fukasaku has added a contemporary, controversial and violent epic to his oeuvre. Fukasaku immediately identified with the teenagers from the popular manga/novel by Takami Koshun which formed the basis for the film. At the age of 15 he was confronted with the death of his class mates during a bombing raid. The emotions that evoked the irrational hatred of the powers that had used such violence, have for him always been crucial.

What would you get if you crossed Lord of the Flies, Survivor, and The Most Dangerous Game? You'd probably end up with Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale one of the most controversial Japanese movies of all time. Based on a popular novel by Takami Koshun , Battle Royale is the ultimate game of survival. With the Japanese economy in a tailspin (title cards let us know that unemployment figures have swelled into the double digits) and the youth of the country becoming increasingly violent and wayward, the government enacts the Millenial Reform School Act (also known as the BR Act). This governmental edict stipulates that each year, one class of ninth grade students is chosen at random, taken to a small island, armed, and forced tofight to the death. This year's battle involves Class B from a local middle school. They're rounded up for what they think is a school field trip, but awake to find themselves on an island and held hostage by armed guards commanded by the game's ringleader, Kitano (played by Takeshi "Beat" Kitano).  There they must fight to the death in an ultra-violent slaying spree, where best friends are pitted against each other, and enemies exchange sharp words for blades, guns and unrelenting gore.

The accidental timing of the release of this film in the West, coinciding with the terrorist atrocities in the States, raises not only serious questions as to the nature of violence on screen but issues of censorship, and cultural difference. Banned in the US for the foreseeable future, Battle Royale digs up memories of the Columbine massacre and other such high-school shootings, scraping at the raw nerves of a nation which – had this appeared at any other moment – would have leapt at the opportunity of a big budget adaptation.

The issue of age, and of whether audiences need a moral code crammed down our mouths by a "nanny-state", remains irresolvable. But when will the self-appointed guardians realize that children are every bit as capable as cruelty as adults? Albeit within the arena of the playground, the canteen or the gym, as opposed to a global knockabout. Why should it be more acceptable for films like Series 7: The Contenders to portray adults stalking each other across shopping malls and hospital corridors, as prom queens wield pump-action shot guns, every bit the fantasy (so we would hope), as kamikaze school kids? A few years here, a few years there…
 

Japanese cinema is now arguably more original, more daring, than any amount of Sundance friendly indie fare. There’s the Ring trilogy (death by the cursed videotape), Audition (death by the demure date), and now Battle Royale (death by the best mate). Underneath the veneer of pulp horror lies a central conceit to each. The first explores the theme of disease, the next that of appearance, and now the concept of friendship is prodded and poked beneath an unforgiving microscope.

Who hasn’t experienced the petty environment of playground alliances and broken friendships; harboured a secret crush, or a festering resentment? This is social warfare magnified beyond comprehension, cementing audience sympathy in the face of a jet pressure bloodbath. At one point, reminiscent of third-person shooter computer games such as Doom, a hand extends from beneath the lens, gripping a gun which sprays a hail of bullets into the body of a beautiful schoolgirl as she attempts to escape. But on closer inspection, she has a scythe, and as viewers, our sympathies are muddled, having watched this very same girl as she hacked and blasted at school chums weaker than herself, stumbling over bodies that fell by her own hand.

There is a scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho in which the killer attempts to sink a car containing the body of his latest victim within a swamp. It starts to sink… and then stops. We, the audience, share in this moment of panic, of collective collusion in a terrible crime, followed by relief when the swamp gurgles and swallows the car completely.

Battle Royale extends this shared guilt for the duration of the entire film. Guilt at the rush of adrenaline from the speed of the story, based as it is upon an awful human countdown, willing on the next execution and the next until we are left with the main contenders. And yet each death is granted meaning, despite the numbers involved and the gratuity of each crime. Be it those who choose suicide, those who form tribes, the loners, the peacemakers, and individuals motivated by love and revenge.

At the opening to Battle Royale, a flashback to the close of the previous year’s event opens upon a media scramble for first sight of the winner. "It’s a girl!" yells an anchorwoman, spotting a child no more than eight or ten clutching a blood soaked rag doll. The child’s lips curve upwards to reveal the braces beneath. "And she’s smiling…"

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