I’d heard about “Battle Royale” in the underground film circuit, and this Japanese thriller has become an instant cult classic amidst the masses of true movie fans. Violent, disturbing, and controversial, this is one hard to find movie, but it’s worth it once you find it. You can’t get it at a chain store. Adapted from the novel written by Koushon Takami, In the not too distant future, kids basically rule over the adults, terrorizing them and banding together to rebel against them. One day on a field trip, a group of students, oblivious to what is happening, awake in a classroom, when their teacher who quit after being cut by one of them appears. Confused and frightened, they’re surrounded by armed guards and soldiers and discover they’re being trapped in a game. The game is really a secret law that has 42 students captured and collared and they’re pitted against one another on an island where they must kill one another in three days.
Tag Archives: Future
Equilibrium (2002)
If I was to explain this movie to someone in one sentence it would be this: “George Orwell meets John Woo”. I thought about Orwell he’d probably approve of this film. The center for which all the soldiers come from is called “Equilibrium” or balance as it is layman’s terms; they’re all injected with an opium drug that they carry that numbs their emotions and sense of guilt while they’re controlled by the heavily armed heavily secure government facility. Paired with incredible direction and writing by Kurt Wimmer and sleek stylish cinematography by Dion Beebe, we’re given a glimpse into a world that’s still imperfect despite it being under control.
Rollerball (2002)
Now, granted, I’ve never seen the original “Rollerball” starring the great James Caan, but I think I can assure you, that it might have been better than this fiasco. The movie force-feeds us predictable and uninspired action scenes of people rolling around on their amped up blades and motorcycles as different growling and hooting players wearing ridiculous costumes and helmets bash each others skulls in etching to grab a hold of the rollerball attempting to score a point for a specific country as different announcers from the countries broadcasting the games holler at us through the screen play-by-play.
Metropolis (Metoroporisu) (2001)
Based on the comic book by Osamu Tezuka, we visit Metropolis, a humongous city where high-class humans roam free and robots toil and work underground occasionally surfacing illegally. We meet detective Shunsaku Ban and Ken-ichi two people searching for a scientist performing illegal experiments with robots. This is probably one of the most unusual anime movies I have ever seen. The entire animated sequence and character designs closely resemble the works of legendary animator Ralph Bakshi (Cool World, and Fritz the Cat). No two characters in this movie look alike and no two characters seem alike. Many people who hear about this seems to think this movie is an animated Japanese remake of the 1929 Fritz Lang “Metropolis”.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Spielberg comes back in directing this tribute to late director Stanley Kubrick. Originally, an idea of Kubrick’s, he died before he was able to make the film, so Spielberg got the idea to finish it and make it as more of an ode to the late director. It’s funny, the vision of both Kubrick and Spielberg’s can be seen throughout the entire film. From the flicker of a mere light to a vast landscape of a robot city, I found this to be an engaging movie with incredible lights and characters. The movie resembles the classic fairy tale “Pinocchio” almost identically, as throughout the entire two and a half hours of the movie, we experience David’s search for the “Blue Fairy”, a being that can turn him into a real boy.