Post by fatherkarras on May 25, 2010 0:56:47 GMT -6
In a near-futuristic world, where children pester the adults constantly, Japan created a new program called Battle Royale. In this, a class of students every year is dropped onto a deserted island, where they have to kill each other, until only one remains. They wear necklaces that if you go into forbidden zones, or if there's more than one person alive when the game is over, BOOOM.
BRII picks up a couple of years later, and for the purposes of not spoiling anything, I won't say too much about it, other than that there was a revision to the rules and the kids are charged with finding someone in the allotted time. Now they're in pairs, so if one kid gets too far away, both he/she and their partner go boom.
The Good: The good is also the ugly, partly. The kids are forced into this situation, but nobody wants to die, so it doesn't take long for them to start betraying each other. The horrifying deaths are tempered with moments of sheer beauty and heartwrenching sadness, as friends die all around them. This constant battle between the horror and the heartache leaves you feeling drained by the end of the movie.
The Bad: The overseer/teacher of the group, Kitana overacted a bit.
The Ugly: Kids forced to kill other kids.
The Bottom Line: An outstanding parable of adults' overreaction to kids that they fail to discipline early in life, resulting in the kids running amok, so the adults feel they are forced into this action, when in fact, they are the ones that caused it to begin with. I can't say enough about this double-shot of movies. The second one pulled even more heartstrings than the first, which I didn't think was possible. The final scenes of this movie actually brought a tear to my eye. I can give no higher praise than to say this rivals The Exorcist for my fav of all time.
Look below for spoilers, but I highly recommend not doing so until you've seen them for yourself.
BRII follows the two students who made it out alive in the first one. Shuya (guy) has become a "terrorist" and has devoted his life to staving off the adult threat and trying to get a message of peace out at the same time. Unfortunately, the adults only want to see him dead. His girlfriend from the first one, Norika, is nowhere to be found. It's just him and a group of renegade kids.
The new rules to BR II are that the students have to storm Shuya's compound and kill him within 48 hours, or they all blow up. They're also paired up, so they have to stay close to one another. One of the kids that joined voluntarily is the daughter of the teacher from the first one, whom Shuya and Noriko killed. She just wants to know what is going on, and who the girl in the painting was (Noriko).
On it's own, I probably would've given this an 8, but when taken as a whole, this may be the best set I've ever seen.
BRII picks up a couple of years later, and for the purposes of not spoiling anything, I won't say too much about it, other than that there was a revision to the rules and the kids are charged with finding someone in the allotted time. Now they're in pairs, so if one kid gets too far away, both he/she and their partner go boom.
The Good: The good is also the ugly, partly. The kids are forced into this situation, but nobody wants to die, so it doesn't take long for them to start betraying each other. The horrifying deaths are tempered with moments of sheer beauty and heartwrenching sadness, as friends die all around them. This constant battle between the horror and the heartache leaves you feeling drained by the end of the movie.
The Bad: The overseer/teacher of the group, Kitana overacted a bit.
The Ugly: Kids forced to kill other kids.
The Bottom Line: An outstanding parable of adults' overreaction to kids that they fail to discipline early in life, resulting in the kids running amok, so the adults feel they are forced into this action, when in fact, they are the ones that caused it to begin with. I can't say enough about this double-shot of movies. The second one pulled even more heartstrings than the first, which I didn't think was possible. The final scenes of this movie actually brought a tear to my eye. I can give no higher praise than to say this rivals The Exorcist for my fav of all time.
Look below for spoilers, but I highly recommend not doing so until you've seen them for yourself.
BRII follows the two students who made it out alive in the first one. Shuya (guy) has become a "terrorist" and has devoted his life to staving off the adult threat and trying to get a message of peace out at the same time. Unfortunately, the adults only want to see him dead. His girlfriend from the first one, Norika, is nowhere to be found. It's just him and a group of renegade kids.
The new rules to BR II are that the students have to storm Shuya's compound and kill him within 48 hours, or they all blow up. They're also paired up, so they have to stay close to one another. One of the kids that joined voluntarily is the daughter of the teacher from the first one, whom Shuya and Noriko killed. She just wants to know what is going on, and who the girl in the painting was (Noriko).
On it's own, I probably would've given this an 8, but when taken as a whole, this may be the best set I've ever seen.