I saw The Hunger Games last weekend. I loved it. I’m probably going to see it again. But the film reminded me of another movie about teenagers fighting to the death, a film that The Hunger Games has been both fairly and unfairly compared to – Battle Royale.
I’ve seen the Japanese film Battle Royale five or six times and find something new to love about it each time. I would not recommend this film for the faint of heart, but if you have a moderate tolerance for violence, check out Battle Royale. If anything, it’s worth it for Mitsuko, the girl who haunts my dreams.
Mistuko is beautiful, dangerous, and deadly, one of the two teenagers trapped in this battle who takes pleasure in killing. Both haunting and haunted, she gives you the strong impression of someone who was damaged even before this terrible battle began, someone who never had any friends and couldn’t understand why. There’s a fierce sense of pride in her, a lust for the kill, and yet something pitiful and sad underlying all of that.
WARNING: THIS CLIP IS EXTREMELY VIOLENT.
I love every minute of this film, that combines scenes of graphic violence with scenes of friendship and beauty. From this scene, you can see that Mitsuko is a scary, effective villain. If you watch the rest of the movie, you can see more of her tragic character. Kudos to Kou Shibasaki for her work in this brutal story.
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OMG, someone else who understands Mitsuko! She’s my favorite character, by far, in Battle Royale (2nd is probably guy with GPS, for totally different reasons – man, I’m forgetting names, which means I’m due for a rewatch now), even before I watched the Director’s Cut and read the book, which just developed her character even more.
GPS guy is Sugimura and I love him, too. A guy who spends the whole movie searching for his best friend and the girl he loves is going to have a special place in my heart. I also love the three tech guys who hack into the system to try to disable the collars.
I haven’t read the book but I think I should give it a shot. And yeah, Mitsuko manages to terrify me and break my heart all at once. How she keeps trying to fight even after she’s been shot so many times – it’s terribly sad.
Even though I have only a brief understanding of Battle Royale it is still what comes to mind whenever I think of the Hunger Games. I know that isn’t fair to the Hunger Games but the reaction is automatic. My best guess as to why it is an automatic reaction is that until Hunger Games Battle Royale was the only thing I had heard of with its type of plot.
I don’t think it’s an unfair comparison to make, but I’ve seen people talk about THG as a “ripoff” of Battle Royale, and that’s just not true.