Film Four is broadcasting in the clear this weekend and I showing some great movies. I've managed to catch Series 7 - The Contenders [2001] and Battle Royale. Both are excellent and I highly recommend them.
The first is a bitingly funny satire on the current public appetite for reality shows. In the town of Newport, Connecticut, five citizens are chosen at random to take part along with the two-times champion from the previous season, Dawn Legarto, a native of Newport who is eight monts pregnant and has very mixed feelings about coming home. The other contestants include a young student, whose parents want to be 'there for her', a nurse with a pretty poor opinion of her fellow human beings, a paranoid conspriacy theorist, an unemployed blue collar worker and Jeff Norman, Dawn's former lover is now dying of cancer.
What's really great about it is that director Daniel Minihan has captured the tone perfectly fromt the camera work to the ominous-sounding voice over ('These cats... don't have... nine lives').
Battle Royale is similar in theme in that it deals with society's acceptance of violence and death. In a near future pre-apocalyptic Japan, young people are peceived to be out of control. To curb this - it's not exactly explained how this works - a class is chosen at random each year, drugged, kidnapped and deposited on a deserted island and given weapons. They have three days to kill each other the winner being the one left standing at the end of the three days. If more than one are left alive at the end of the game they are all killed - each participant is fitted with an explosive collar.
Based on the novel by Koshun Takami and directed by the late Kinji Fukusaka, this movie created a storm of controversy when it came out in Japan. That may have contributed to its financial success. But even without the controversy, Battle Royale is a thought provoking film but funny and horrifying sometimes both at the same time.
In many respects, the Battle Royale is a metaphor for any society. All generations are to some degree paranoid of the generation that comes after it. After all, the younger generation will ultimately replace the older one.
A sequel, Battle Royale 2, is reported to be in production for release later this year directed by Kenta Fukasaku, son of Kenji Fukasaku and writer of the script of the original.
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