I Saw The Greatest Movie Ever Made...

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Dunno, I find most asian cinema (aside from those wonderful crapfest thailand films) to be boring, trite, and generally garbage.  If japanese youth is truly going through a rough time I can see why!  They need some movies that aren't bizarre/freakish/stupid!

[auriond]

Ok, I've refrained from joining in the discussion because admittedly I don't watch a lot of Japanese movies. But that last comment just irked me. You're assuming that Japanese youth are being influenced by their movies. That's like saying American kids are violent because of the video games that they play. It's an incredibly annoying POV.

Why are Japanese (Japanese! not Asian!) movies generally seen as bizarre/freakish? Is that a case of life imitating art or art imitating life? Japanese kids are screwed up because of their pace of life, among other things. I come from a similar society, and I can tell you that I see exactly why Japanese bizarre/freakish/stupid movies are attractive. By the way - before the current trend of bizarre Japanese movies, Japan was known for its weepy romances that the Koreans have now turned into an artform.

And Blackthorne - you're definitely missing the point here. The audience that the Japanese films are targeting are, in fact, watching the movie for the story as well as the gorefest. There's a reason why Scream and other gory American slasher movies are not as popular in Japan as you'd expect. We don't watch for the torture. The torture is just a visual reflection of of mental and emotional pain, and in some cases even spiritual. The bizarre scenes are a way of exploring the fantastic, where all normal rules are suspended, and in Japan rules are pretty restrictive.

[esper]

A heartfelt "Aye!" to that, auriond.

I just got done reading about the Nevada-tan murder, where an eleven year old girl who was a big fan of Battle Royale slit the throat of a twelve-year old girl in her class with a boxcutter. Now, I must say, she did not do this from watching BR. Just like everyone else, her guilt is her own, and the trouble and mental anguish which caused such a horrible event must have been pre-existant.  BR shows that death and killing, even for survival, is a terrible thing with very real consequences. To quote the boy who just killed his friend (who had been driven to insanity by the fact that he was a fat, unpopular kid who would no doubt be killed off first) with a crossbow bolt to the heart: "Oh, my god! It's real! It's really for real!"

I see Asian cinema as just that: cinema. What comes out of America is a crapfest. With movies like 300, Pan's Labyrinth, etc. coming out, you wonder exactly how production companies actually came to the conclusion to make them, since American audiences would rather watch steaming piles of fecal matter like Scream and Hostel. I enjoyed the first Saw because of certain psychological elements, but most of it and it's two sequels were fetid loads of filth, just like everything their producers and those of their ilk are allowing to be made nowadays.

I'll always stand by my argument, regardless of what assholes like Jack Thompson and Billy Graham and James Dobson are saying, that Hollywood isn't trying to put ideas into the heads of our youth: our youth have the ideas already in their heads, and we feed it because it's the fashionable and moneymaking thing to do.

Japanese cinema, on the other hand... people freak out because they use cartoons for pornography and poop on each other alot. My sister refuses to allow anything from Japan to cross the screen in her house because she's sure somewhere some girl is going to be getting raped by tentacles. But we're the sick ones, in this bloody, rotten place. The Japanese might make movies we construe as being sick, but if you compare Battle Royale to any of the movies of similar genre that are out in America now, you will see that it's us who are sick. The underlying theme of all our horror movies is blood, guts, and death. The underlying message of Battle Royale is that even in the face of the worst imaginable terror there is a way of escape... there is hope. As I said earlier, the theme isn't horror. It's a sad commentary about despair, and what it can do to people... and why it doesn't need to be, and how things can change so it doesn't need to be.

They portray, as auriond said, their on-screen anguish and sorrow in the form of terrible images of torture and pain... what do you expect? Fifty years or so ago we wiped out a considerable portion of their innocent population because of the mistakes of their government. The memory of a huge number of people being simultaneously wiped from existence in a cloud of radioactive horror is as good a reason as any to portray extreme situations of horror in your cinema, and has been a fundamental part OF their cinema ever since Gojira rose out of the ocean.

[Gord10]

I totally agree with Aurion and Esper.

Please allow me to use this term: Violence porn.
I had watched Saw II,III and Hostel. These movies had 'words'; "What can a human do to survive?" and "What if someone, who regards other people as pleasury objects, turns into another pleasury object in a different way?" (the guys had gone to that place to have fun with hot chicks, but they ended up finding theirselves on torture chairs).
But let's be honest. Was the most of the audience be able to see these words? Did these movies really intend to show us these messages? I think no.
I admit I enjoyed much watching these movies in theater, so did my friends (and the other audience), and it was because of the fact that we watched them as 'violence porn'. I wasn't shocked at all after getting out of the theater; I was drinking some wine with joy in a bar after watching Saw III.

But I could never say the same things for Audition.
Thing that really shocked me was not the torture scene in the final. How everything could turn into these mess, and how both Asami and Shigeharu STILL loved each other. I couldn't fix my mind for a while after seeing Audition. (maybe it is also because of the fact that I had an online love relationship with a Filipino girl that just looks like the actress playing as Asami; yes, I know how Japan and Philipines are different, but this didn't change the fact that I regarded Asami as her and myself as Shigeharu during the movie [and I need to note that my online girlfriend was intending to marry me and saying things like "Love me. Only love me", this still chills me out]). *cough* The reason why I would want to put Audition to another category with Saw series or Hostel is that the way how the story was told.

Now I feel curious about Battle Royale; going to see it as soon as possible.

P.S: I think "The 3 Extremes" (I hope I typed correct) should be mentioned in the Asian horror movies category , too.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The torture is just a visual reflection of of mental and emotional pain, and in some cases even spiritual.

Riiight.  I'm sure it has nothing to do with them being allowed to get away with that stuff in movies.

...and I totally disagree with auriond and Esper.  Wow!

[esper]

Shut up!

they use cartoons for pornography and poop on each other alot.

HOW CAN YOU ARGUE WITH THAT!!!!

[Phemar]

Hey Esper, and anyone else who wants it, here's a link to download the manga: http://www.mangaspot.com/battleroyale.php.

[Blackthorne]

And Blackthorne - you're definitely missing the point here. The audience that the Japanese films are targeting are, in fact, watching the movie for the story as well as the gorefest. There's a reason why Scream and other gory American slasher movies are not as popular in Japan as you'd expect. We don't watch for the torture. The torture is just a visual reflection of of mental and emotional pain, and in some cases even spiritual. The bizarre scenes are a way of exploring the fantastic, where all normal rules are suspended, and in Japan rules are pretty restrictive.

I don't watch horror films for the gore - I watch films for the story.  I like to be captivated by the story - be it through suspense, wit, intelligence, humour... what have you. 

I agree with Prog - I find the stories trite and boring, often, in these ultra-violent movies.

It's not to say, however, that a lot of Japanese (and Asian) cinema isn't beautiful.  In fact, I believe that some of the most creative DP's are working in Asian cinema.

Bt

[auriond]

Fair enough, Blackthorne. Each to his own - I suppose I can see why people might see how the violence is disproportionate to the drama inherent in each story. After all, I myself don't watch many Japanese horror films. Anime, on the other hand...

ProgZmax: It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that they're allowed to get away with stuff like that in movies. As I said, the movie-makers push boundaries in films, and they probably feel the need to push further than what you think is necessary, because 1) they're responding to a different society and culture, and 2) Asian audiences, being mainly Buddhist and Shinto audiences, have a different view towards violence, death and the bizarre from what you might be used to.

[LimpingFish]

Auriond makes an interesting point (for the second time), that the artistic freedom seemingly "enjoyed" by Japanese filmakers is borne out of society.

Kinji Fukasaku's early seventies Battles Without Honor or Humanity series is ripped straight form newspaper headlines chronicling the savage wars between Yakuza factions in post-war Japan. The films are ultra-violent for a reason, but still far behind the scenes of bloodshed witnessed on the streets of Japan's Yakuza controlled towns and districts.

Just as Martin Scorsese drew inspiration for his early work form the world of the New York mafia, so too did Fukasaku draw inspriation from their Japanese equivalent, the Yamaguchi-gumi.

On a moral or political level, in my experience, the Japanese seem to have a unique view on violence and pornography, which some see as cathartic. A japanese politician one remarked "It's the girls in the videos that keep the girls on the street safe."

Naive, and simplfied, though this remark may seem, it also seems to be correct.

That doesn't mean they give it credence above other media, or regard it on any level above what it is. But they understand it.

America laments the corruption of it's youth by violent cinema/video games/hip hop/whatever, and it's artistic culture is fast on it's way to being one of the most restrictive in the free world. Purely political scapegoating, of course, ignoring drugs/guns/disaffected minorities/a total breakdown of family structure.

As for artistic merit, well, what can I say. Hollywood currently has the artisic merit of tampon in a teacup.

To hold up the stories to such films as discussed here to be "trite" and "boring", when the pinnacle of contempory american cinema is a remake of a Hong Kong film, or the continued wholesale rape of seventies cinema, both American and European, by Hollywood's "finest", well...what can I say?

Make no mistake, "popular" cinema (indeed, popular culture) in Japan/Hong Kong/Korea is just a vacuous as in America, and they produce just as much crap.

But labelling a section of their work as  "what they can get away with", as if Japanese society has itself become so morally lax and corrupted that tentacle rape and scat are passe and viewed by the populace as a whole, is the product of a misinformed opinion.

My love of Asian cinema isn't confined, or defined, by the movies I have mentioned here. Indeed, one of my favourite Asian films is rated "G", and is fit for viewing by anyone.

Just as I hold various boundery-pushing American and European filmakers in esteem, doesn't mean I limit my viewing to their work.

As  a side note, as the only country the holds the dubious honour of witnessing not one but two atomic bomb detonations on it's civilian populace, I think Japanese society is pretty well adjusted.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

ProgZmax: It has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that they're allowed to get away with stuff like that in movies. As I said, the movie-makers push boundaries in films, and they probably feel the need to push further than what you think is necessary, because 1) they're responding to a different society and culture, and 2) Asian audiences, being mainly Buddhist and Shinto audiences, have a different view towards violence, death and the bizarre from what you might be used to.

Fair enough, but unlike some of you I don't see this approach as some kind of glorious statement being made but merely an attempt to shock the viewer.  There have been hundreds of artists who over time retconned their own purpose behind what they did because, well, people have this odd tendency and need to interpret things that were never there (but certainly made the work more interesting!).


And Fish, don't mistake your interpretation of my views as misinformed.  Your views on America (and American cinema) are well known to me, however, and therein lies an obvious bias on your part.  Don't make me fry and feed you to starving kids! 

[esper]

I just want to clarify, especially for Progzy, that generally I hate the type of movies you seem to think I'm talking about. I don't want you to think I'm some kind of sicko that gets off on kids killing each other. My reaction to the movie wasn't based on the whole "oh, it's horrible so it must have a good message" thing. My brother, whom I don't even speak to anymore because of just this reason, forced me to read a couple of books and when I told him I didn't like them, he got extremely angry. "You'll never have the skill in your pinky finger to write as they have!!!"  "Why?" I asked him. Turns out, it's because they were the first few prolific American writers to start using a lot of profanity in their novels. So, I'm certainly am not on board with the whole "it has to be harder and faster and badder than anything previous to be good" way of thinking.

Really, Battle Royale isn't all that bizarre or hard or freaky, and it certainly wasn't even nearly as bad as ANY American action or horror movie I've ever seen (by far), with the exception that the casualties are considerably younger. What struck me about Battle Royale as being so powerful is the way the students reacted. It was horrifically real, and terrifying, and beautiful. I recently read that the director made it because the book reminded him of when he was younger... he was drafted at the age of 15, and I read, although I can't find it again now, a specific recollection from him about loading artillery with mortar exploding all around him, and having to dive under a pile of the bodies of his fallen 9th-grade friends and classmates to survive. He didn't make the movie to make a statement, or for the sake of pushing the envelope, like Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino tend to do... He did it because the story meant something to him, and it was a deep and profoundly moving experience for him, and he wanted to share it with people like me. If anything, the stylized violence detracted from it, not made it more enticing as everyone else seems to be saying. However, it made it hit home more. When you see a character who you've come to care about ripped apart by gunfire, especially an innocent little girl who just wants to survive to see the boy she likes, it's very painful.

It may sound lame, but I'll always remember the students who died in Battle Royale, as though they were my friends. That's how very touching and personal an experience it was for me.  It may sound lame, but I wish I had been there to stop Kiriyama before he started his murder spree... I would have been a friend to Mitsuko and Yoshio so they didn't think killing was the only way to survive... I would have helped Shuya protect Noriko to the end... I would have tried to give hope to Yoji, Kazuhiko, Tomomi and Yoshimi before they commited to their suicide pacts... I would have mourned Kawada as he lay dying from his wounds. I know it may sound lame, but I've never had such a moving movie experience, and I doubt I ever will again.

[auriond]

...well, people have this odd tendency and need to interpret things that were never there (but certainly made the work more interesting!)...

*g* the old literature debate. If the author didn't intend a certain meaning, is it still valid for the audience to read that meaning into it? The official answer is yes; but I personally think it does take away a little bit of that validity, and there I agree with you.

But then that would bring it back to whether the author, or in this case the film-makers, really meant for there to be more to their movies than just shock horror. I don't think I've watched enough to comment on it, so I'll sign off here, and wonder whether I should try to watch Battle Royale even though I'm really not into extreme violence and gore. I didn't watch Kill Bill either, for the record.

[esper]

It's certainly not extremely violent or gory, especially not as much as any American film of similar genre. As I said, the "shock value" in the case of Battle Royale is the age of the combatants, not what they do to each other. And, with the exception of Kiriyama, ALL the violence is portrayed as horrible, mind-numbing, terrifying, and sad. It's not cool to kill, it's something that drives the characters to anguish, despair, and insanity. Cool people in black trenchcoats aren't doing the killing, but rather frightened children with no hope or survival otherwise. When blood sprays, the characters don't bask in it, they cry. It's definitely not a movie designed to glorify senseless violence, but rather to warn against it. The only western movie I can liken it to is POSSIBLY Red Dawn, but Red Dawn isn't even a pale shadow of Battle Royale. I heartily recommend it, and the whole reason I started this thread in the first place is because I wanted people to see it and possibly share what I felt.

[TheYak]

I dig the movie as well, but for some of the same and some differing reasons.

I can't say I enjoyed it (maybe captured by it?), for the reasons you mention.  The reactions of the kids as well as the different paths they choose in the situation seemed - if not realistic - to convey a much greater depth than most horror or action filmes I've seen.

The aspect I did actually enjoy was the b-movie style of it.  It was very campy and, in its own way, bitterly amusing. 

It seems a bit like the Lord of the Flies story.  However, LotF was written as rebuttal to the "Noble Savage" philosophy and BR was some of that, but more in keeping with story trends like about survival, resourcefulness, and what happens when character (weak or strong) battles dire circumstances.  It also seemed to have a theme in keeping with "Those that fail to learn the lessons of history . . . " and a kind of, "Sins of the fathers shall be visited . . . " 

I halfway want to read far too deeply into it before reminding myself how campy it is.  Where LotF was more hyperbolic in the speed and severity of the children's actions, BF was more hyperbolic in the scenario, yet with more realistic reactions, I think.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I don't think you're a sicko, Esper, nor do I think that because you enjoyed the movie you are somehow wrong.  Some people (my mother included) would say I have an extremely morbid sense of humor because I typically watch only horror films, and the more esoteric and shocking the better!  What I'm getting at is that just because someone did not like the film does not mean they missed the point, so if Blackthorne for example didn't like the movie it doesn't mean he's culturally challenged or missing something, it just didn't do anything for him.

[Erenan]

I've seen Audition, and although I'm normally not a squeamish person, I felt deeply compelled to pause the movie halfway through the preliminary scary stuff at the end and take a break, which I did. I had to pause it again right before Asami started Aoyama's punishment session, and I paused it once more right after

Spoiler

she cut his foot off

[close]

because I felt as though I was going to vomit. I actually stood over the toilet for about a minute, and then I flushed my face with water (don't worry; I moved to the sink first ). But then when I started it again, I somehow felt absolutely fine through to the end, even when she started

Spoiler

cutting his other foot off.

[close]

I'm not a horror film person at all. In fact, Audition is the only serious horror film I've seen that I can think of. (The Ring doesn't count, in my opinion. It wasn't scary at all, again in my oh so humble opinion. Maybe Ringu is scarier? I don't know.) Given that I don't watch horror movies on anything remotely close to a regular basis (why on earth was Audition my first real horror movie for crying out loud?), I'm not sure why I was so affected during the build up and then in the midst of the climax, but after the fact I felt absolutely fine. I wasn't looking over my shoulder every few moments any longer. The nausea had completely vanished. I was even able to turn all the lights off and go to sleep alone in a dark apartment with no worries. Maybe it was because my brain was trying to sort out the psychology and plot knots. In any case, I came out of it thinking, "I liked that movie, but I didn't enjoy it."

I want to see Videodrome now.

[esper]

@ Progz: 

The Ring, I thought, was just a good movie, not a very scary one. The idea was scary, and that's what I liked about it. Being a writer myself, I love stories (which, by the way, I know I've been going on, and on, and on, and on about Battle Royale ((that was the original point of this thread after all)), but another thing that Battle Royale influenced me in is to make sure that my characters, even the very minor ones, are deep, complex, and multi-leveled, and that even the villain is someone the character understands, just like poor, lonely Kitano). The idea was, in fact, frightening. I left the theater thinking "That was a really good movie!" and then went out with some friends to the ice cream parlor. That night, though, and for a series of nights afterward, I had a hard time sleeping. Ringu is actually a bit more creepy, with more disturbing images and sounds (the towel-headed man kept appearing in my mind for weeks afterward). I was watching it with two female friends, and they couldn't watch the whole thing... one decided she was going to throw up and left my house crying. It didn't bother me at all... Neither did Ringu 2... Neither did Ringu 0. Neither did Rasen. No movie has ever scared me (when I was 8 I think I jumped at a Freddy movie... since then I hate all jump-horror, not because it scares me, but because it's cheap). But Ringu and its sisters... and it's cousins... are all very creepy and atmospheric. And like I've said countless times about horror... it's not calesthenics (ie. jumping out of your seat through the whole film) that makes a good horror movie... it's being trained slightly to look in the back seat of your car before you get in... to unconsciously slip your blankets over your head before you go to sleep... to walk back from the bathroom in the middle of the night a little faster than you normally would... to not hang your feet over the side of the bed...

...or, like me, show the Ring movie to everyone you can... just in case.

[Gord10]

I had a chance to see Battle Royale yesterday night.

Well, I do not think it is The Greatest Movie Ever Made, but was still good enough to disturb me (in a good way). It could be a much better movie if it was more 'believable'. In 'believabity', I don't mean the fictional BR act,

Spoiler

but the school kids who can still survive enough to fight and have some last words after getting shot 6-7 times with gun (I don't even mention the teacher getting shot with a machine gun, and then goes to answer his cell phone and eats a cookie for the last time). I mean, even if you shoot a kid once even to their legs/stomach, don't they fall and pass over?
This may sound like an unsignificant detail, but it ruined the whole reality of the movie for me, I felt like I was watching a computer game.
On the other hand, as Esper stated, the reactions and the acts of the students were so real and shocking.
I really felt sorry for the nerd students who succeeded to hack into the island system and were about to blow the main building of BR with explosives (and we witnessed the Japanese intelligence once again   ). I wish I could stop that crazy guy before he killed them, I would really love to see that scientific boys survive and escape the island. (THE GEEK SHALL INHERIT THE WORLD!).

[close]

Oh, by the way, had anyone else thought of making a game of this BR concept after watching the movie?

[esper]

I definitely have. I had a dream that I told Peter Jackson to get off his ass and go make the Hobbit so I could direct the American remake (properly read: bastardization) of Battle Royale that they are going to start working on in 2008. Too many projects going on at once, though.

And as for the survivability factor... adrenaline does weird things to you... and sometimes taking license with how the human body works is an essential part of storytelling