Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Occasional contributor Ed Wood is back with a look at the sequel to one of the most well-known foreign cult titles of the last few years. I keep waiting for Harry to write his incendiary review of this one, but I think maybe he’s too afraid. He’s real chicken, you know. Not today’s reviewer, though… nope. Check this out.
Ed Wood Reviews Battle Royale 2
To say I was pleasantly surprised by this, Kenta Fukasaku's follow-up to his late fathers original, much trumpeted Battle Royale, is something of an understatement. And note that sentence, because "understatement" is a word which will be as rare in articles concerning this film as the term "wacky hilarity" is in reviews of Abel Ferrara's Driller Killer. Whether with regards to its polemic, its satire, or simply the amount of spilled innards one can feasibly toss across celluloid, Battle Royale II : Requiem, never does anything as bourgeois as whisper, when screaming will ably suffice.
Other reviews, some on this site, have painted Requiem as a nihilistic, immoral, amateurish mess, a project that should have died with the late Kinji Fukasaku. Indeed, such words have been cast into talkback's with rabid frenzy by individuals yet to even view the film. Whatever it may be, and it is a LOT, often simultaneously, it is neither nihilistic, immoral, amateurish nor offensive for the sake of it. Here are some things, however, which it certainly IS - Funny, incisive, satirical, exhilarating and witty.
Most folks know the plot by now, but for those that don't, BR2 concerns a group of terrorists, Wild Seven, who have declared war on the adults of the world, and the Battle Royale act in particular. To combat this insidious corruption, the powers that be elect to send the participants in Battle Royale themselves into armed battle with the terrorists. Youth vs Youth, Contestant vs Contestant, one generation versus another.
Requiem takes a bloody, nail-filled baseball bat to the ethics of American foreign policy, but only in as much as America acts as a cipher for the western world in general. But Americas BEHAVIOUR in war is attacked no more vigorously than Americas DEPICTION of war, and the Combat Genre is lampooned mercilessly throughout. The students' arrival on the terrorist-filled island is almost frame-for-frame, bullet for bullet lifted from Saving Private Ryan. An isolated student at the mercy of a distant sniper replays the finale of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket in similar fashion. A pivotal cremation scene even conjures up the spirit of Return Of The Jedi, so much so that one almost expects Yoda to wobble over at some point. Via this plundering (which is certainly no more ruthless than Kill Bill, a fair trade one might say), BR2 gets off with what is the fundamental flaw of almost all "War Is Hell" pictures, which is simply, it's hard to contemplate the loss on display when one is busy bouncing with adrenaline as a dozen bodies hurtle into fume-drenched oblivion. Indeed, this blatant and thorough lampooning acts as a virtual Get Out Of Jail Free card for Fukasaku throughout, up-to-and-including the truly cringe-worthy dollops of saccharine sentimentality that pepper the two and a quarter hours onscreen. Certainly some of drivel spouted by the characters can be put down to the accuracy of the subtitles, or occasional lack of it. After all, a foreign screenplay is only as good as its translator. But dialogue has nothing to do with the soundtrack, which heightens these crass moments by being so over the top as to be ridiculous. This is not War Is Hell, this is War As Farce. The soundtrack is also crucial in heralding this constant referral to Hollywood Combat right from the opening scene, when a city skyline crumbles to dust as Ride Of The Valkyries plays on the soundtrack. Apocalypse Now indeed.
There are moral issues to be addressed regarding this film, certainly, but the alleged nihilism found by some viewers to dwell within each frame is an unfathomable protestation. This depiction of a society so torn apart by its actions and the consequences of such, is anything but nihilistic. It is, in fact, incredibly humane. To be so worried about the direction the western world is headed, that any filmmaker would bring to the screen such easy-to-vilify chaos, shows genuine concern, not gleeful emptiness.
And that chaos is rampant throughout. It has now become accepted by most that for proper, limb-lopping gore at its most debauched, one approaches not the Horror section, but the War section. Battle Royale 2 has a body count so high as to be virtually incalculable (A claim boasted by the UK release of Shogun Assassin once upon a time).
The character of the Teacher is not so much shaded here as simply presented in stark contrast to his earlier incarnation half way through the picture. The sneering antics and cartoonish villainy would have felt out of place in the much more sombre original, but here somehow fits in, because EVERYTHING in this film is exaggerated, and characters often appear less as fully rounded individuals than mere ciphers for some greater evil.
The only problem one might encounter with BR2 has nothing to do with the film itself, as such, and everything to do with the ideals of the viewer. If one watches this, knowing that it is as much doctrine as movie, as baffled by depictions of war as by war itself, then the epilogue makes perfect sense. It acts as a perversion of a thousand endings to a thousand other films, and is certainly no less cloying than the ending of that recent flick about the dwarves and the wizards. While Battle Royale often appeared to be much less biting than it imagined itself to be, the satire often lost in the exploitation onscreen, the follow up suffers almost from the opposite affliction. So keen is the director to express the anger evident in the screenplay, that everything else seems almost inconsequential at times. But make no mistake, this is an incredibly brave film, and an important one. How it will be seen in twenty years time is anyone's guess, but it is a film that condemns military ethics with much more venom than, say, Black Hawk Down, and is, incredibly, much, much more exhilarating.
Cheers. Check out http://mondoirlando.blogspot.com for more comment and movie going shenanigans.
Thanks for the review. Check out this guy’s site if you liked what you read.
"Moriarty" out.
