Battle Royale

This is an Japanese action film. It has the themes of love, politics and trust. It is  based of a book of the same name, where a brand new government act where a class at random is selected and they must fight to the death until one is left however if there are more at the end of the three days everyone will die. It follows many of the different students involved and shows how each one had died, though it mostly follows Nanahara, Noriko and Kawada. in addition it focuses on Takako, Kazuo and Kitano-Sensi(Who is my favorite character). In this is I shall look at the performance elements and the Cinematography.


In one of the beginning scenes where the students are told what is happening they go through a mixture of emotions what are clearly shown. Anger is shown by some of them as they are outraged by the fact they must do this. Nanahara is clearly shown to be enraged by the death of Nobu. The reason that this happens is that we know that he is the closeest that Nanahara has had to a family and he is taken away form him in front of his eyes. To empise this the camera is having a mid shot of Nanahara so it can capture the shock on his face and that there is blood all over him. As the shots change so does his emotions. It then turns to a long shot where he is clearly sad even though we can't see his face we know this as he is crying out loud and to be in front of all his peers it must of been very saddening for him. After a short while he then clearly has a large amount of anger grow inside of him. The thing what pushes him is that Kitano asks him calmly with no simpithy if he is all right. we know he is angered by him screaming at Kitano and having to be forced to the ground.

While this scene goes on they are watching a video on what is happening. This is shot so that the entire TV screen fills the screen. It allows the audience feel like they are there with them creating a strong level of immersion. Immersion had been used often in this film for example at the beginning of the scene bright lights are shined into the audiences faces making them feel disorientated just like the students. This disorientation is a continuation of what had happened earlier as the camera is shot from a bird's eye view turning around so that the audience is confused but sees how many people are there.