Hello everybody! It's 12.50 P.M. on Monday the 26th of March 2012!
I had an early class this morning, "Malaysian Studies" it's about the history and about all the things in Malaysia, I wasn't really paying attention to it coz I was freaking sleepy. I haven't slept for almost 24 hours now and my brain is about to EXPLODE! I think I should stop playing games for a little while, I mean I spent almost 20 hours in front of my laptop yesterday, editing my Battlefield 2 and Counter Strike : Source and of course playing them.
Ok, back to the story. I got out of class @ 11 and I went straight back to my apartment, turned on my laptop and plugged in my Western Drive Harddisk, 500GB of Movies, T.V. Series and music! So I was cleaning up my folders since it was such a mess, I have like 400 movies on this HDD and I've seen like 200 something. I categorized the movies to those that I've watched and those that I haven't. Out of the blue, I see this movie, the name was "Battle Royale". I thought this was a western movie from the name, I mean the name was "Battle Royale" who would've thought it was a japanese movie?
I started the movie, hoping that it was an action packed, fighting, shooting, or something of the like. And just like I always do, I skip through the movie while looking at tiny bits of it at the same time. At first it looked like a japanese / korean / chinese movie about love drama and whatever, I couldn't really tell the difference between asian people. But at the middle and the end there was a lot of gun shooting and blood and etc. So I decided to watch it, and thank god there was an english subtitle.
The main character which is "Shuya Nanahara", a Japanese middle school student, attempts to cope with life after his father's suicide by hanging.
On the third year of Shuya's middle school, class 3-B makes a field trip however, the class is gassed and was then taken to a "briefing room" on a remote island, when they awoke, each of the 42 students ( 39 students of class 3-B with 3 "transfer students") had electronic bomb collars. Kitano (the homeroom teacher of 1-B back in Shuya's first year" explains that the class has been chosen to participate in this year's Battle Royale as a result of the BR Act, which is passed after every 800,000 students who had school. Then Kitano played a video of the "Battle Royale" instructions, it showed that the students are forced to kill each other for three days until only one student remains. Students resistant to their rules or if the students had entered one of the randomly placed "death zones" for are killed by the collar's detonation. Kuninobu (Shuya's best friend) refuses to cooperate and Kitano slashes Kuninobu's back with a knife before detonating his collar while Shuya watches in horror, which quickly turns to rage and Shuya tried to attack Kitano but is held down by Shinji Mimura and several other students. Another student, Fumiyo Fujiyoshi, is also killed before the game begins. Each student is provided with a bag of food and water, plus one item containing either a weapon (a shotgun, a pistol, a knife) or an item (a saucepan lid, a fork, a paper fan, binoculars). The weapons are supposed to eliminate any natural advantage any one student might have over the others.
The first night sees several deaths, four of which are suicides. Exchange student Kazuo Kiriyama and Mitsuko Souma had become the most dangerous players in the game, while another exchange student, Shogo Kawada seems more merciful. Shuya promises to keep Noriko safe for Kuninobu, because Kuninobu was in love with her but does not tell her. Other students have more legitimate goals in the game: Mimura and his friends plot to hack into the military's computer systems and destroy their base of operations; Hiroki Sugimura searches for his best friend Takako Chigusa and his love interest Kayako Kotohiki. Chigusa runs into Kazushi Niida, who is sexually obsessed with her; Chigusa kills him after forcing himself on her, but is herself killed by Mitsuko. Kawada teams with Shuya and Noriko, and reveals that he had won a previous Battle Royale at the cost of his girlfriend (Keiko); he is now seeking revenge. The trio are forced to separate when Kiriyama attacks, and Sugimura rescues Shuya.
Shuya awakens in the island's lighthouse where Yukie Utsumi and the school's cheerleading squad are, and have been hiding out. Yuko Sakaki, thinking that Shuya murdered a friend of hers, attempts to poison Shuya's food, but it is inadvertently eaten by one of the girls, causing a gunfight resulting in the girls' deaths except Yuko. Yuko realises the enormity of her paranoia and jumps off to her death.
Shuya returns to Noriko and Kawada, and they set out to find Mimura's group. To a small warehouse, Sugimura tracks down Kotohiki, who panics and kills him shortly after; Sugimura professes his love before dying. Kotohiki cries in despair, and is found and killed by Mitsuko. Watching from the rafters of the warehouse, Kiriyama guns down and kills Mitsuko. Mimura's group is shot by Kiriyama before the bomb built by the group explodes. When Kawada, Noriko and Shuya arrive at Mimura's group's bombed-out base, Kawada confronts and kills the shrapnel-blinded, Uzi-armed Kiriyama with his SPAS-12 shotgun.
On thae morning of the final day, Kawada takes Shuya and Noriko aside and fakes their deaths. Knowing that Kawada has won through manipulating the BR system, Kitano ends the gme and dismisses the troops before establishing final protocol, intent on killing him. Kitano realizes, and Kawada acknowledges that he, and not Mimura, has hacked into the game system months beforehand, and has now disabled Shuya and Noriko's tracking devices. Kitano unveils a homemade painting of the dead students with Noriko indicated as the winner. He confesses that he always thought of her as a daughter, after being rejected by his real daughter, Shiori. After being shot by Shuya, Kitano takes a final phone call from Shiori before dying. Shuya, Noriko and Kawada leave the island on a boat but unfortunately Kawada dies from injuries sustained in his gunfight with Kiriyama. Shuya and Noriko are declared fugitive criminals, and last seen on the run in the direction of a Tokyo JR train station.
This is a terrific movie, and I give a rating of 9 / 10. For those of you who like horror, mind-twisting, mind-blowing movies, then I suggest you watch this one. Even though to me this movie wasn't so scary, but to you normal peace-loving people then this would be a scary movie like no other. Remember, this movie is filled with gun shooting and a lot of blood, which makes this movie rated "R" that means only 18 and above are allowed to watch.
And now I have finished downloading Battle Royale II : Requiem I am going to watch it and give another review right away! I will update soon with the link for this movie, and if there is anyone that wants the 3D version of this movie, please contact me.
Ciao for now!
