Seventh Meeting: Battle Royale

118 NE 28th Ave., Portland, OR · Monday, April 9, 2012 from 8:30 PM to 11:30 PM

Posted 1 year, 1 month ago
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Seventh Meeting:

"Battle Royale"

Monday, April 9th at Beulahland
(http://beulahlandpdx.com/)

In April, Beulahland will give 10% of their Monday sales to Raphael House! (http://raphaelhouse.com/)
Enjoy our film discussion and help support this agency against domestic violence at the same time!

8:30 pm

Summary:
Forty-two students, three days, one deserted Island: welcome to Battle Royale. A group of ninth-grade students from a Japanese high school have been forced by legislation to compete in a Battle Royale. The students are each given a bag with a randomly selected weapon and a few rations of food and water and sent off to kill each other in a no-holds-barred (with a few minor rules) game to the death, which means that the students have three days to kill each other until one survives--or they all die. The movie focuses on a few of the students and how they cope. Some decide to play the game like the psychotic Kiriyama or the sexual Mistuko, while others like the heroes of the movie--Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada--are trying to find a way to get off the Island without violence. However, as the numbers dwell down lower and lower on an hourly basis, is there any way for Shuya and his classmates to survive?

Why This Was Picked:
In a Clockwork Orange for the 21st century, the late, great Japanese auteur Kinji Fukasaku tackles the anti-authoritarian Battle Royale — a gorefest with a purpose, an astonishing opus of teen rebellion, generation-gap satire and gleeful bloody anarchy. Seasoning the time-honored “Most Dangerous Game” scenario with an adults vs. teens twist, Fukasaku tells the dystopian tale of a depressed society run rampant with teen violence, as the government decides to tame insubordinate youngsters by shipping entire 9th-grade classes to a remote island for the ultimate test in survival. Whether goody-goody or troublemaker, the kids must prepare to kill or be killed. Shocking, hilarious and as thrilling as any classic Spielberg or Scorsese epic, it is one of the most incredible and explosive action films of the last few decades, made even better by a devious, ice-cold performance of a lifetime by Beat Takeshi (one of Japan’s greatest movie stars). Withheld from U.S. distribution since its original release in 2000 due to its disturbing teen-on-teen carnage, Battle Royale will blow you away.

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