I Thought I'd Live Until Tomorrow...
The Premise
42 junior high school students are gassed and taken to a deserted island. When they awake, their "teacher" informs them that they will be participating in a kill-or-be-killed Battle Royale - a lethal program where each student is randomly assigned a particular "weapon" and survival kit, and sent on their way with explosive collars that will detonate in 72 hours if they don't play. As there can be only one survivor, much of the students object to the program and either deliberately or subtly try to find ways around it... while others see the program as a game to get even.
The Good
With an extremely small budget, and an excessively large ensemble cast, the father and son team Fukasaku present a marvelous adaptation of an extremely controversial novel published only a year beforehand. Overall, the script is moderately faithful to the novel, and through its seemingly nightmarish visuals of blood-baths and carnage, audiences are thrown into the hell that awaits our protagonists (and antagonists). We are also sharing in their feeling of dread at the thought that a number of these characters (peers and friends) will be killed, quite brutally, and there are quite a few sympathetic ones at that. Lastly, there's Shogo Kawada (played by Taro Yamamoto), the transfer student whose talent stands apart from the others, in more ways than one.... his portrayal was flawless.
The Bad
Now as I said, there was a very very small budget for this film. As a result, we are forced to endure the screeching and shouting of some very very poor actors. There are also some instrumental changes, not just in the manner of how some of the students are killed (actually, the majority was pretty accurate), but some explosive chases and fights (some of the most exciting parts from the novel) were left out. Also missing is one essential scene where Noriko (Aki Maeda) is forced to kill a very very evil student, undermining the unavoidable "blood on your hands" aspect of the story, trading it in for the preservation of innocence.
Overall, this an acceptable "B movie" adaptation of Koshun Takami's novel, and while it may be too violent for some audiences, the concept retained is as accentuated as it is brutally audacious - serving as an allegory for the cut-throat business society we live in today.
2.5/5