Battle Royale movie?? A few questions....?!
Question: Ok, I saw this movie like 4 years ago already. But i just watched it again. Am I crazy, or was there really a scene where one of the girls was having a flashback where she was a little gurl and a man wanted to rape her so she pushed him down the stairs?....cause i think they cut it out...anyways, what happens to kawada at the end? ( the dude with the yellow bandana)...was he ever really planning to kill the two other survivors? what was his way out ? he said he knew a way out... How were they all able to escape? could somebody clarify this for me? thank you
Answers: Ok, I saw this movie like 4 years ago already. But i just watched it again. Am I crazy, or was there really a scene where one of the girls was having a flashback where she was a little gurl and a man wanted to rape her so she pushed him down the stairs?....cause i think they cut it out...anyways, what happens to kawada at the end? ( the dude with the yellow bandana)...was he ever really planning to kill the two other survivors? what was his way out ? he said he knew a way out... How were they all able to escape? could somebody clarify this for me? thank you
The ending of Battle Royale is one that often leaves the first-time viewer scratching his/her head; it seems to come out of nowhere and not fit in with the rest of the movie, and doesn't seem to make sense.
Japanese movies typically don't spell things out the way American films do, and leave plenty for the audience to puzzle over and debate after the movie.
One of the things that come to light at the end of the movie is that there are two agendas at play during the game that we weren't fully aware of: Kawada wants to screw over the system, and Kitano wants Noriko to survive.
Kawada's story about Keiko is presumably true; although he does more than his share of lying and doublespeak in the film (that was his point, after all, reminding Noriko and Nanahara and the audience that no-one--including him--is to be trusted), this is the closest we get to a clear motivation for the things that he does, so we'll take it as a given that his story about Keiko is true. So, looking to avenge Keiko (or die trying), Kawada sets a plan into motion. His sole goal: to make a BR program fail in its objective by allowing more than one survivor.
To this end, some time prior to the events of the movie, Kawada hacks into the BR computers (not necessarily the ones on the island) and does two things: he steals the schematics for the collars used in the game, and he adds himself to the roster (perhaps as an "involuntary" transfer student, if his claim about being drugged and kidnapped is to be believed; he may just as easily have signed up like Kiriyama did and lied to Noriko and Nanahara; either way, he's on the island on purpose).
His knowledge of the collars' workings enables him to do a number of things:
1) he knows that the collars are bugged, and knows what to say and what not to say to manipulate the BR people's knowledge of what he's up to.
2) he knows how to tamper with the collars to make the BR computers think that the wearer is dead.
3) he probably also knows how to tamper with the collars to keep them from exploding (we don't know this one for sure, but if Kitano had armed his collar with the remote control and Kawada took it off shortly afterward without having to have it disarmed, it's reasonable to come to this conclusion).
Kawada knows full well that he isn't going to be able to save a large number of the students--if he tried, the BR people would've probably known something was up and put an end to his plan. So he sets out to save a few--the lucky ones being Noriko and Nanahara. He probably saw a little bit of Keiko and himself in the two lovebirds, and knew from the first encounter that they didn't have the capability to turn on him. He doesn't reveal his plan to them for fear that the BR people (and perhaps other, more malicious students) would learn about it, but he apparently gains enough trust from them to have them go along with him.
But Noriko and Nanahara were nonetheless caught unawares by the endgame. Kawada "betrays" them by revealing his plan to kill them (a rather flimsy excuse anyway--he could've done away with them at any point in their alliance and he still would've likely come out the winner if events had played out exactly the same otherwise), then (obviously) deliberately misses them when he shoots. He then quickly goes to them and tampers with their collars, making the BR computers think that Noriko and Nanahara were dead.
As an aside, many people often wonder whether Mimura's hacking of the BR computers the previous night had something to do with what happened here, but the answer is probably not: None of the final three players knew about what Mimura did, and moreover, as we can see in the shots of the Kitano's lair during the endgame, the computers are working fine the following morning and doing a good job of showing who's still alive (lit up in green):
So something obviously happened at that point to make the BR computers think that Noriko and Nanahara are dead.
Kawada's plan, then, was to emerge the victor and return home. Noriko and Nanahara would have to figure out a way to get back to the mainland, and they would have to remain on the lam (as eventually the ruse would've been figured out, and the government wouldn't be too happy with that), but they'd at least be alive, and Kawada would've achieved his goal.
This scenario is obviously a lot to swallow, and the truth is, the closest it gets to being spelled out to us is Kitano's line: "You can deactivate it, right? You hacked into the system and swiped that data, right?" His audible (but not subbed) mention of Mimura helps add to the confusion (I'm told that a more literal translation was "You were the one who hacked into the system and stole the data, and not Mimura"). He isn't accusing Kawada of causing the Third Man attack (since he most likely knows that Kawada was not in a position to hack the computers while he was on the island), so he must be referring to a different incident of Kawada hacking into the BR computers.
The novel, on the other hand, spells out practically the same scenario described above in black and white, beginning with a telegram sent to the BR headmaster Sakamochi (Kitano's counterpart in the novel) that notifies him of someone hacking into the BR computers a couple of months before the BR program involving the Shiroiwa students (our Class 3-B) was to take place. The telegram tells Sakamochi to press onward with the program, since it didn't appear that the program was compromised. Kawada's ruse is described in greater detail, right down to the revelation that the addition of a small resistor is what does the trick with the collars.
Now for the other aspect of the movie's puzzling ending: What was the deal between Kitano and Noriko?
One thing to note here is that this subplot is nonexistent in the novel; Sakamochi is not the former teacher of class 3-B, and he doesn't know any of the students prior to the program.
From the get-go we learn that Noriko's not like the other students--when the entire class decides to skip school, she shows up. Some of the girls in school don't particularly like her. If the dream she has in the movie is more of a memory than a complete fiction from her imagination, she had a good rapport with her teacher Kitano, and (from the audio we hear in the scene as it plays out at the end of the Special Version) it's this relationship that makes her a target of the bullies. Regardless,the filmmakers make sure to show that Kitano goes from a smug look to one of concern when Noriko is accidentally shot (complete with a quick freeze of the
action) early in the movie.
While one can speculate that there are darker, more provocative motives behind Kitano's favoring Noriko, one scenario that is easier to arrive at is that Kitano sees Noriko as a surrogate daughter. In the movie, we see Kitano interact twice with his real daughter, and we can see that his relationship with his daughter (and his wife) is not exactly the sunniest. It is perhaps no accident that the actress who provides the voice for Kitano's daughter Shiori is Ai Maeda, the real-life older sister of Aki Maeda (who plays Noriko). It isn't unreasonable to conclude that Kitano saw Noriko, the only student who respected him and whom he respected, as the daughter he wished he had...and the one person he wanted to put him out of his miserable existence.
So Kitano enters Battle Royale with his own agenda (it's possible that he played a role in the selection of Shiroiwa Class 3-B; having his own former students selected "by impartial lottery" is somewhat dubious): Give Noriko the best chance of surviving. There were no doubt limits to what he could to to manipulate the outcome, for he probably isn't the top banana of the entire BR program, so he couldn't just take her out of the game. But he did intervene in one key instance which surely would have resulted in Noriko's death: Noriko's encounter with Mitsuko. If he managed to change the outcome of one encounter, it's reasonable to surmise that there are other variables he manipulated to ensure that Noriko had every advantage--after all, he knew these students very well, and probably had keen insight into their personalities. One could go as far to speculate that the selection of danger zones, the issuing of weapons, and even the killing of Kuninobu (knowing that Nanahara would be motivated to protect her) were all manipulated by Kitano to achieve his ends, but there's no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that this happened--it's up to the viewer to come to that conclusion or not.
Kitano was aware of Kawada's agenda and what he was capable of doing. He certainly knew on the third day that Noriko and Nanahara were alive, which is why he refused to let the soldiers check for their corpses. If Kitano was informed ahead of time of Kawada's hacking (as Sakamochi was in the novel), he could have seen it as something that fit well with his own plans, and subsequently secretly let Kawada screw up the program with Noriko (and Nanahara) benefiting from it. Where the theory gets iffy is how Kitano would be able to ensure that Kawada would team up with Noriko and Nanahara, but odd coincidences are a staple of cinema
read the book. its phenominal. trust me READ THE BOOK. however good you may think the movie is, the book is a hundred times better. read the book and all your questions will be answered.