Sunday, March 7, 2010

Book Review: Battle Royale

6:41 AM | Posted by Ling | Edit Post

PLOT: A group of junior high students went on an educational trip only to find out that they were left out in an island to play a game, Battle Royale, wherein the student must kill each other until only one survives. The lone survivor will be declared the winner.

STORY: Although the story is set in Japan, but it was mentioned in the book that it is known as the East Asian Nation. This Nation is a facist-type of government ruled by a "Dictator". They have this known project called "Battle Royale", wherein every year the government must randomly select a class of junior high school students to play the game in a randomly selected location. The winner for this game will have bragging rights and a photo of their dictator. How unrewarding, after all the trauma this kid have been through.

The players/students were assigned numbers according to sex, e.g. Boy #1, Girl # 1. And all of them were provided with day packs that has food water and a weapon. Each student carried a different weapon from stun guns to Derringer pistol to a poison and even a shot gun. The kids must kill off each other with a time limit and there are certain locations of the island that will be declared to be forbidden at a certain time. If a person stays in the forbidden zone with at that time, his or her head will be blown off since the kids were being monitored with collars, and the collars act as an explosive device.

MY IMPRESSION: I have heard some three years ago of a Japanese film entitled, Battle Royale. But I never though that this was actually based by a book written by Koushun Takami in 1999. Quentin Tarantino actually saw this film, and that is where he spotted Chiaki Kurayama, who portrayed Gogo, the school girl of Kill Bill Vol. 1. I personally haven't seen the movie, but when I saw this book being displayed with the "Twilight" series. I told myself to buy it.

This is not a book for those who call themselves, "hopelessly romantic" or those who read romantic novels. This is to avant-garde and brutal for their taste. I actually read this out of curiosity since I made a resolution to read books. And I mean books that are not often read by anybody here. Ever since it was released in Japan, Battle Royale was a smashing hit, and the translation was also a hit in the West. It could be that these people already watched the film (already a cult status) and wants to read the novel.

I don't want to mention the main characters simply because once I mentioned their names, you already get the idea of who is going to survive. And besides, I want the readers of this book review to read the book themselves.

On an interesting note, the guy protagonist is a Bruce Springsteen fan, that he thought of this:
"Together (girl protagonist) we'll live with the sadness.
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul.
Someday girl I don't know when we're gonna get to that place.
Where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun.
But till then tramps like us baby we were BORN to RUN."






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2 comments:

jute said...

Ha. I've heard about the movie. I think the movie was based on the manga, which in turn was based on the book. I actually like gore if it makes sense. And the fact that it has children for main characters is so....Japan. XD Will probably check out the movie after reading your review.

April 4, 2010 7:17 PM
Ling said...

I think you should read the book, or the manga before watching the movie. The movie has a follow-up, though, "Battle Royale: Requiem. But Takami-san is not the author of the sequel.

April 4, 2010 7:31 PM

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