Battle Royale

I must admit that I am somewhat baffled by the overwhelmingly positive reception of Battle Royale in the west. I think it is an above average film that has something to say about friendship, survival, and perseverance. In addition, there are some artistically filmed scenes and some good set pieces. But it also has lots of cartoonish violence and no overall unifying theme in my mind. There are some other interesting aspects of the film. It seems Tarantino was really impressed by the a couple of the more menacing female killers (I wonder if the yellow track suit worn by Chiaki Kuriyama, who stared in Kill Bill 1 as Go Go  Yubari, influenced Tarantino in his costume choice for Uma Thurman?). I heard he also wanted to cast the murderous loner Mistuko, Kou Shibasaki in the film, but she had scheduling problems. The director Kinji Fukasaku also cast Takashi Kitano in the film, who started his directing career after taking over directing Violent Cop when Fukasaku had to withdraw from the film some 20 years earlier. I still think it's one of Kitano's best. In one of the bonus clips the director talks about having a feeling of kinship with the film since he had an experience working at a munitions factory during the war when he was bombed and had to hide under the corpses of his dead classmates to survive-this is the age of the students in the film. So when he read the novel he related ot he experience and got the right for a film. Despire its shortcomings, it is an interesting and compelling film with lots of over the top violence that probably isn't for everyone.