Battle Royale

i've been meaning to write about this for a long time, but i haven't had the chance to finish watching it until yesterday.

this is a japanese movie which was produced in 2000, and was based on the controversial comic book by Koshun Takami. it is set in the next millenium, when the future japan when unemployement is at an all time high, and when students rebel against everyone. Each year, one class is randomly selected for this. they are brought to an isolated island, where their task is to be the ultimate survivor.

they are given weapons of any kind, including guns, hacks, dustbin lids etc, and the motto is to kill or be killed. the way those students are killed is horrendous. there's also a good dose of romance ( and cute guys ) thrown in. my favorite guy has to be taro yamamoto. he's super good looking. Only one ultimate survivor is allowed. if more than one are alive, they will be detonated by the collar that is attached around their neck. There's also the second series, but its hard to find.

The best thing about japanese films are that they are so creative. i seldom get to watch real jap films, but i have seen a lot of cartoon movies based on mangas. One of the best is Princess Mononoke, and a host of others. For tv watching, it has to be samurai x. The difference with western films is that they do tell a story, but its so dicsrete that you have to pay close attention to the film.

I'm not a really big fan of some of the jap mangas though. There's this one shop in midv that caters to manga fans. some of the comics are great. the ones that i destest are those with their girl characters having abnormally huge boobs. The japs can be creative and perverse at the same time. i do know that in japan, that there are novelty bookshops that cater to those that like to read x-rated stuff (mangas included). And some places in the world that i've been to have these too. Interesting...

The sad thing is that malaysia doesn't really pay much attention to asian movies. i've heard of some interesting films coming from korea too. Sadly , i have to search for the dvd editions to look at some of them.

Movies that i am going to watch are kingdom of heaven and star wars 3. Orlando bloom looks so good in it. i've never seen him being that seductive! and star wars, just to see how darth vader got created. but i do give battle royale 8 out of 10 because its so weird.