Mielke-Ashcroft-Gonzales Junior High...
Mar. 4th, 2007 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
varropdx...aka "Battle Royale".
What a freakin' disturbing movie. Amy read the book before seeing the movie; I didn't, but plan to. Spoilers and review under the cut...
I saw the "juvenile delinquency" reason for the Battle Royale as a red herring - the real reason for the event was to terrorize the population into submission through their children.
In the film (different from the book) the two ringers (Shogo Kawada and Kazuo Kiriyama) were put in the game to kill all the "normal" students to terrorize the population into complying with the fascistic government - they quickly get the most effective weapons (the combat shotgun and the Uzi), and I think the game was fixed so that they *would* get those weapons.
Erich Mielke, the head of East Germany's Stasi secret police, and John Ashcroft, who initiated Operation TIPS, knew that the best way to control the population was indirectly, by convincing people to spy on each other against a vague menace, whether it was "counter-revolutionaries" or "terrorists".
Ultimately, the game was brought down by a combination of resistance from both within and without, including Kawada's decision to turn on the game (because of his being the survivor of a previous game and having to kill his girlfriend) and help Shuya and Noriko survive, as well as the geeks' hacking into the computer system and attempting to blow up the headquarters.
It's easy to control the people if they're fighting amongst themselves, and having a spy on every block is a good way to do that.
What a freakin' disturbing movie. Amy read the book before seeing the movie; I didn't, but plan to. Spoilers and review under the cut...
I saw the "juvenile delinquency" reason for the Battle Royale as a red herring - the real reason for the event was to terrorize the population into submission through their children.
In the film (different from the book) the two ringers (Shogo Kawada and Kazuo Kiriyama) were put in the game to kill all the "normal" students to terrorize the population into complying with the fascistic government - they quickly get the most effective weapons (the combat shotgun and the Uzi), and I think the game was fixed so that they *would* get those weapons.
Erich Mielke, the head of East Germany's Stasi secret police, and John Ashcroft, who initiated Operation TIPS, knew that the best way to control the population was indirectly, by convincing people to spy on each other against a vague menace, whether it was "counter-revolutionaries" or "terrorists".
Ultimately, the game was brought down by a combination of resistance from both within and without, including Kawada's decision to turn on the game (because of his being the survivor of a previous game and having to kill his girlfriend) and help Shuya and Noriko survive, as well as the geeks' hacking into the computer system and attempting to blow up the headquarters.
It's easy to control the people if they're fighting amongst themselves, and having a spy on every block is a good way to do that.
