Battle Royale

Nothing fancy today. I got up at 7:30, earlier than my grandparents expected. They were expecting me to crash due to jet lag. Ha! I'm made of sterner stuff.

I sent Mary a quick text message. She's an old friend of mine and we left for China on the same day. She didn't call back until the evening. She apparently suffered some delays, but ultimately arrived okay. It almost seems as though my usual bad luck all went to her. With my botched description of where I'm living, she said that her grandparents actually live pretty close. My reception was really bad, so we ended our call relatively quickly. Oh well, at least we made contact.

One thing I did get to do was watch Battle Royale, suggested by a friend of mine. It's some Japanese film where a random high school (I think, could be college) class is brought to a deserted island and kill each other off in a twisted game of survivor. Each student is issued a random weapon as well, ranging from a pot lid to automatic rifles. As much as I applaud the concept of random killing, it got a little too human. I thought it would be more Robinson Crusoe (I'm totally screwed, I'll make the best of it, here's the cool stuff I did) than Lord of the Flies (Let's try to work things out, but that goes down the crap chute). Note, however, that I haven't read Lord of the Flies yet, and that's just what I've gathered about the book. Or maybe because I just came from watching Fate/Stay Night, whose themes and moral conflicts were similar. Then again, it might also be because the movie moved too fast and (once again) I didn't feel connected to the characters/plot. The hacker, guy with the sensor (sorta), possibly the crazy girl with the scythe, and the main characters were the only ones that garnered any interest from me. I also feel that the whole lighthouse scene was a huge cop-out. The director/screenwriter could've done so much more. Maybe I'm getting sappy, but I sorta felt for all the couples in the movie. Plus, the random violence didn't bring nearly the amount of sheer exhilaration that I had hoped. Maybe it's phasing out of of me, maybe I'm just fascinated with the concept rather than the act (like torture), or perhaps I only enjoy it as an object of my twisted humor and an enabler of my silly little amusements. Anyway, each of the characters could've been a main character, only some of them got shortchanged. Ultimately, I'd give the movie a thumbs-up and a recommendation, but not for some violent psycho like me. Rather, it would better fit some intellectually-inclined person looking for some interesting group dynamic stuff and isn't turned off by violence and has an offbeat, quirky sense of humor. If I ever find a girl like me, then it might make for an interesting date movie. I dunno, now that I look back on it, maybe I should've giggled some more at a few points (like whenever that psycho killer showed up). I guess I wasn't in the best position to be enjoying the movie, just like when I saw Borat. I probably should watch it with John next time, maybe Jordan, too, sometime.