Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

There have been some outrageous blancmanges in my time, namely the Spanish Hedonist Special or the Mexican Death Blancmange. Often those who sample such dishes are shocked at the levels of spice inherent in each one.

I liken these dishes to this bloodthirsty Japanese satire/horror from 2001. Battle Royale is one challenging pitbull of a movie. It concerns a nightmare future world where the disobedience of "da yoof" is so out of control, the only solution is to pit them against each other in a three-day fight to the death. Gross overpopulation and spiralling unemployment are cited as reasons for what is effectively a "mass cull."

Well... where to begin?

This is clearly one of the most violent, unflinching movies I have seen in recent times... perhaps even ever. Unlike the American horror industry's fetish for gore, the blood splatter in this film hides more significant and timeless aspirations to cinematic enshrinement. I believe that it fails to do this... but more on that later. We have plot to fill in and blancmanges to be eaten.

Once the children are "briefed" on their mission in a mordantly amusing spoof "educational video" the remainder of the film involves attractive teenagers killing each other. Three "hired killers" appear to have been thrown into the game to spice things up, but this is never made clear. The proceedings are bestial, grossly unpleasant and strangely poetic.

The handsome adolescents are forced to fight for their lives in a sprawling farout everglade. Through the realisation their death looms, they form various emotional unions out of complete despair, finding ways to stave off killing each other and being killed. That's when proceedings get a little strange and the film makes "important points" about human nature. It becomes more of a war film in some respects, exploring the mechanism within us to become murderers when we have to. Hmm.

From what I can fathom, in this blancmange-obsessed brain of mine, is that the film is supposed to represent the cut-throat nature of Japanese life (hence the electric bomb-tags around their necks), and effectively, the fight is symbolic of a certain dehumanisation in the hyper-technological world of Japan. This is why (presumably) the adolescents become the masters of emotion whenever their mate or someone they had a crush on perishes. Hmm.

Personally, I found the film thoroughly depressing and grimmer than a night in Blackpool pier. I disliked the way in which we were meant to empathise with these teens when someone was being machine-gunned every five minutes. I found massive problems with the way in which these teens interacted, twice as intelligent as most adults in that situation, and found the levels of retributory emotion utterly exhausting. In short... I wasn't too interested in seeing any of them live.

Imagine a Shakespeare play in which someone is trying to avenge someone's death every few minutes. Or count up the amount of deaths in Shakespeare then triple them by thirty. This is bad blancmange. It is overdone and sticky.

The film is not an exploitative gore-fest. It is adapted from the cult novel from Koushun Takami and I believe also from Japanese manga films (fond of blood spillages, revenge and suchlike). The actual feel of the film flits between the histrionics of manga and the poetry of American war cinema. It has cult stamped all over it, but in this case this not necessarily a good thing. The outcome has less of a "proper" emotional feel... it ends up being more like a cartoon strip than a movie.

Perhaps the book yields deeper riches. Here I feel the film is a horrible tangle of ideas, pulling the viewer four ways at once and into a blancmange of unpleasantness.

I won't bother looking into the sequel.

For fans of gruesome cult films with intelligent, ambitious ideas at the centre. A warning to all those with weak stomachs... this film is free and easy with its butchery.

Yours with blancmange,

Captain Blancmange.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age