Review: Battle Royale
Author: Koushun Takami
I was blown away by the Battle Royale movie (see cancerkid's Battle Royale review). So much so that I watched it again that same day. There were so many details, things you don't catch the first time you watch it. With 40+ characters, it's pretty hard to go into much detail about them. So I decided to pick up the original novel it was based off of by Koushun Takami. The movie did stay pretty true to the book, there were some differences: such as the instructor of the island wasn't their old teacher. In general it was pretty close, but the book of course had a wealth of details and background information on characters that the movie didn't have time for. Still with so many characters, even the book had to glaze just briefly over their backgrounds. Every review I've read about this story compares it to “Lord of the Flies”. They do have a very similar plot and deal with some of the same ideas and themes. They're both about a group of kids on an island fighting and killing each other; civilization breaks down and bloodthirsty competition erupts. Lord of the Flies is a great story, but I think Battle Royale takes everything good about it and intensifies it. And thats not just because the kids are shooting at each other with assault rifles and hand grenades. Tensions run extremely high because you don't know who you can trust. Even your closest friend might kill you in this game in order to save their own hide. It's human nature at it's ugliest, it's weakest, and sometimes at it's best.
Reviewed by: Ravenous, added September 09 2004
Comments: Battle Royale
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[8-24-05 9:21 PM]
Stephen King recently wrote about this book in his EW article on "Books to Read This Summer ('05)." I think he may have just pushed this book on an American audience that isn't going to like it at all...Because they are ignorant.
- Stalker's Rage