Battle Royale

seeing this in a theater heightened my enjoyment to the maximum degree. Battle Royale is a perfect violent drama. each moment spent with all the students, their backstory and their deaths, adds equally to the dark comedy and the tragedy of this whole film. it rides a fine line between genuinely heartbreaking and disturbingly funny. seeing these high school scenarios, like group cliques and unfulfilled crushes, played out in life-or-death stakes and played out with such genuine sincerity is just wonderful. this film contains so much sympathy for those who could not live to see post-war peace in Japan. despite this, it was a conscious choice by both Kinji and Kenta Fukasaku to change the novel’s dystopian, fascist Japan to one not too different from how it looked then, and how it looks now. i have not stopped thinking about this film since i rewatched it. it’s phenomenal.