Erick: [00:00:00] You’re doing the speed room, by the way. Yeah. I,
Vivi: I don’t remember enough of this movie. That’s fine. You’re like, because guess what? Everybody died. The end
Erick: false. Three people. Actually, too many people died, didn’t I? Not enough deaths.
welcome back to Shake Out. Scared. He refused always. Eric and Bebe. Today we’re talking about the 2007 movie Battle Royal directed by Kinji Fuka. Saku. I apologize if I said that wrong, but before we get into that, how are you Bibi? It’s a new year. Happy New Year. you. Filthy animals. Is that Merry Christmas?
That’s Merry Christmas. Oh, well you’re still filthy, but I love you.
Vivi: I started off the year with Covid.
Erick: Good start. Good start. Oh, I was just kidding about being filthy, but I guess, yeah. Oh, thanks . No, I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad you’re fine.
Vivi: Yeah, but I don’t look fine.
Erick: You look fine.
Covid. No, COVID. You look the same hat. No hat.
Vivi: Yeah. I wear these hats cuz I don’t do my hair for these. Okay. I know a lot of people rock these pretty well. I feel like I look like a peanut head. But , it’s fine. It’s
Erick: pin head. Larry and . [00:01:00] What’s the one dirty Dan? Yes. but yeah, no, it’s a good new year.
this movie also is a good pick for starting the year off fresh, you know, kill off all your characters. Yeah, clean. Slate. Just get rid of everybody. . Yeah. so before we jump into it, what’s your group content?
Vivi: Okay, so because I was in the throes of disease, I was actually able to watch a couple movies.
One being incantation, which is on Netflix that I’ve wanted to see for like ever, never got the chance to. And then a day or two after being sick, I saw everyone tweeting about the movie Possession, which is now available on Shutter. It’s a movie from the 1980s. Watched both of these I’ll start with incantation.
It was not as scary as I wanted it to be. It had so much potential. It is so much like the Ring. Haunted video, A haunted story. Woman’s basically trying to save her daughter from a curse and curses everyone watching the film. It had a lot of potential, but it just didn’t scare me.
It was so, so involved. I guess maybe I was too sick to catch all the details of it. just too loopy, [00:02:00] like, oh yeah. Like it’s got so much going on. I feel like you blink and you miss it. It suffers from something that we’ll probably talk about in this movie, which is just bad. Oh, is it dubbing? Okay.
Is it different language? Yes, it’s a Mandarin. Mandarin. Okay. could also be why I missed a lot of it. Possession was a wild movie. Not in the way I thought it would be. It was a film that I, I probably don’t recommend to everyone, especially if you’re not someone with a longer attention span. This film’s two hours and it’s two hours That almost plays out like a relationship drama with minimal horror cut.
Erick: Is it just implied horror?
Vivi: Oh no. There is some like messed up stuff that happens. Okay. In the end. , it is just uncomfortable to sit through. Like I’ve never had two hours where I just felt like more tense and uncomfortable for what was going on with this couple. Cuz essentially it’s about A failing marriage. you sit with them and it gets really weird. it’s a fascinating film. I had to look up what it [00:03:00] meant. Interesting. I don’t know if I recommended to
Erick: everyone though. No. I feel like I should watch it cuz have you seen that marriage story, the one with Scarlet Johansen and Adam Driver? It’s not a horror movie. No. Completely off topic. But because that’s like also about a failing marriage and you also feel uncomfortable you see how they get along but they don’t, and you’re like, oh no, this is going to shit.
But is it that with horror elements. I think
Vivi: it’s more intense than that. I haven’t seen that movie. I’ve seen the memes of it. Yeah, like when it came out it’s more dark, I would say. And there is definitely more intense moments of horror in it.
Erick: Okay. Yeah. I’ll check it out. I think I saw you watching it when I was walking by.
Vivi: You’re making, what is this? Sure. I
Erick: was alive. Making sure you’re breathing. Lokey does that for me most of the time. He just puts nose on your nose. Yeah. With his hot ass breath. this nasty ass breath. And when I hear you cough, like, oh, Lokey get away. . She’s alive. Yeah. I’m like, she’s fine.
How about you? I did a lot actually over the last few weeks, I started streaming on Twitch for our show.
So if you have Twitch or ever care about that kind of stuff, go to twitch.tv dot sha. Scared, I started streaming [00:04:00] on their different video games. I started watching uh, monster Lion series. I watched, actually, I didn’t write it down, but we watched troll Hunter Christina from Miss Buki Tails.
Join me for that one. It’s pretty funny. I haven’t seen it since college I think it still holds up. It’s like a creature feature basically. And plays into the lore of behind the scenes. The government is hiding that all these natural disasters are happening.
But in reality they’re happening because of trolls. And so there’s this like one guy in Olive Norway who hunts trolls that almost sounds comical. it is funny. Yeah. you get enough troll action I think to merit the two hours.
There’s like different kinds of trolls But it is cool. I think it holds up. it was a fun time, but it has that same problem with the dubbing being bad.
We watched it in English because that’s the only thing that Tuby had, I watched it originally with the sub. subs are just always better. I feel like.
Vivi: Um, I’m
Erick: milita Do you mind.
Vivi: I don’t wanna be like a snob that’s like uh, do the sub versus the dub. But I will say that Dub makes things so difficult to understand
Erick: sometimes. Yeah. We’ll get to it with Better [00:05:00] Royal. But I remember watching this movie and I told you it was so good because I felt like the actors, and you could tell because even though we watched it in English dub, you could tell the actors are acting their heart out.
Oh yeah. Especially the main guy, Najada. But you don’t capture that with the horrible dubbing that they did. the other stuff that I did, we watched a bunch of altered horror shorts that’s altered from YouTube There was one that’s like a retelling of the Labyrinth story, which ended up having a twist at the end, which was pretty cool.
I watched a couple of Christmas ones. I told you this one was fucked up. It was like the elves, they have these like dark elves who come and pick up homeless folks, fatten them up. to make them the Santas that are in like the malls and like go and visit kids and stuff like that. Just to put them back on the street once the holiday season’s over and then do it all over again.
So they get them addicted to this. Yeah. Looking for these elves and then they just sound crazy when they’re like, an elves brought me to like work this job. And the elves are like, nah, has nothing to do with me. Yeah, that sounds
Vivi: very dystopian. Yeah. And
Erick: awful. It was kind of messed up. There’s a bunch of messed stuff and all the shorts are kind of good. So you strict those out. And then Monster Land, I feel like I’m going on forever so I’m sorry but I did watch a lot . You did For once. I can finally say [00:06:00] I, took some time for myself. I only watched the first episode.
I want to keep going on stream. So if you wanna watch Monster Land let me know. But the first episode was cool. It was kind of like a change link story I think. No, I think I confirmed that it wasn’t a change link thing, it was like just some face swapping being and so it does a lot of like red herrings where you think the bad guy is gonna kill the main girl.
And she also does a lot of really fucked up shit cuz she’s got like this one problem with her kid. it’s kind of messed up. I don’t know what this episode’s trying to say . But go check it out. Uh, I’m excited to see some of the other episodes cuz one of them takes place in Illinois, other than that you almost threw up, but the mortuary assistant is a video game or you have to embalm bodies fast enough to not get possessed by a demonn that’s in one of them. And
Vivi: I wish I could play these games, but. I don’t know if it’s just the way you play it.
So chaotically and you constantly move the camera around rapidly. I’m just like, I can’t, I’m gonna puke.
Erick: I move the mouse at the speed at which I would in real life. Is
Vivi: that what you’re at All the time. Just fucking
Erick: 10. Yeah. Cause when it’s too slow and then like you’re trying to run from stuff, it’s like, oh no, [00:07:00] I didn’t move the mouse fast enough.
it is intense. There’s different kinds of visions that you see. There’s like a mimic, which is uh, whiteface demonn looking thing. And then there’s the shadow man, which is like the red eyes, but it’s like a dark figure. And then there’s a woman white, which I haven’t seen yet, but I’ve heard, cause I’ve only played three shifts of it.
I had my skin crawling at least that first night.
And I think because you were helping me in the beginning I was kinda like, all right, this is cool. And then you started just like, no, I’m not gonna watch anymore. I was like, I need your help. We need to get outta here . Uh, If you wanna go check ’em out, I did record them. We created a separate YouTube channel just to like have the streams on there.
So if you do wanna watch old ones and see what we’re talking about, go check ’em out. I’m gonna keep posting ’em on there too. So if you don’t watch on Twitch, it’s fine. that’s pretty much all I got for creepy content. it’s been pretty creepy. I like it.
Vivi: Creepy.
Erick: Low break. Yeah, creepy comfort content. I kind of almost was like, this is comfort. Cuz gaming also distresses me.
Vivi: that sounded like it distresses me. Like it panics
Erick: me. It distresses me while also de-stressing me. Mm-hmm. , what do you have for comfort content?
Vivi: Well again, due to being sick, it doesn’t, it kind of [00:08:00] suck that when you’re old being sick almost feels like a vacation. Cuz suddenly you get time to do what you want. But you’re Felix shit. But
Erick: not really just your job’s. Like where you at.
Vivi: Yeah, let’s not talk about that . But we have been watching NATO for the absolute longest time and we finally are doing it again.
It’s getting hot. I think the last time getting hot, it’s
Erick: getting real sexy . It really is. That one scene we’re suck. Zakk held NATO super close. And he was like, don’t lie to me. That’s hot to you, .
Vivi: That makes it look like he smacked her. And you were
Erick: like, that’s hot. I mean, he smacked her hand away from him.
Like, don’t touch me, stop lying. But I think the last time we talked about NATO was like last winter also. next year. We’ll get back to you on the next few episodes cause that’s probably the next time we’ll watch it. , is that all you got?
Yeah, that’s all I got. I don’t have anything too different either. I’ve mentioned Jarvis Johnson in the past. He’s a YouTuber that I’ve watched his like commentary on, But he’s been doing a moment of truth, which is such a massive show.
You heard some of it yesterday. Yeah, I heard
Vivi: you watching it and I’m just like, why? The
Erick: questions that they ask these people are so [00:09:00] insane. There’s also a lot of like SLU shammy questions. There is. I’ve noticed that a possessive husband is like the one in the seat and then they’re like asking this wife, like, have you ever talked to another man without your husband knowing like, bro, she could talk to whoever the fuck she wants.
Vivi: Yeah. I’ve only heard a couple questions asked, but they’re just like, it’ll be like a girl’s mom’s there in the audience and they’re like, have you ever in your life. seen someone’s genitalia, . And our mom’s like, oh my god,
Erick: no, . The one today that I saw was like a dad is in the hot seat they asked him, have you ever seen pornography without your wife knowing?
And his daughters are on the chair. Oh my god, teenagers . babe, he was too eager to say yes. the guy wasn’t even done asking the question. He’s like, yes. Oh fuck. Like you could tell he was like, oh shit, I was supposed to wait. I messed up . He was like, yes.
Vivi: Wow. Reality tv. Huh? .
Erick: It’s just insane. Yeah. Early two thousands TV was So INH sucks. Yeah, . on the Sour note, let’s talk about this week’s drink. Future us.
Vivi: Take it away.
Erick: Well that was good. [00:10:00] I don’t know what our reviews were, but go try it anyway, tell us what you think about it.
Do you have fun facts for us?
Vivi: I do have fun facts for you.
So I would like to preface. These fun facts by saying we are trying to pronounce these names and we know we are absolutely butchering them. And we’re
Erick: sorry the dubbing did worse. I think honestly, so
Vivi: Okay, so the first one being the most obvious one that this film is based on a novel by the same name, battle Rayel, written by .
Erick: Kount. That’s our best try. That’s our best try.
Vivi: It was obviously a very controversial novel. It is about a bunch of ninth graders killing each other. And the Japanese government tried to get the novel banned. Subsequently, when this film was in production and being made, the Japanese government also tried to censor it and get it banned,
Erick: unsuccessfully.
Which is so funny given the message of this film.
Vivi: Right. Bit ironic, . But it went on to be one of Japan’s biggest films like one of the top 10 in history.
Erick: I love this movie.
Vivi: When first watched it, I see nothing but amazing reviews. [00:11:00] Amazing praise for what goes on.
Erick: I think where be Royalle has its like pitfall is that because it is based on a book, it has the same effect that most books that are turned into movies have, which is that they lose a lot of detail.
Vivi: Yeah. I think it would’ve benefited from the Hunger Games treatment and getting a couple movies just for the first novel.
Funny that you mentioned the Hunger Games though, because there was intention to create a American remake of this film. Mm-hmm. , which I, I don’t know. I have issues with always having to have an American remake. Yeah. But apparently production of that kept getting pushed back and kept getting pushed back up until the year 2012 when the actual Hunger Game films started coming out.
And Hollywood basically said they’re too similar. People will think that we just ripped off the Hunger Games, even though Battle Royale came out in 2000.
Erick: Hmm. That’s upsetting. I think I would’ve rather had no remake. Yeah. And just push this one more, , it’s a 2000 film and it definitely feels like it, but I think it stands time too.
Vivi: Technically this film was [00:12:00] not even released in the US officially until 2012 because of like copyright issues, getting the right distributor to put it out there.
The way American audiences found out about this was through like bootlegging and, and things like that.
Erick: Actually that makes sense. 2012. Yeah. I was a sophomore and I think that’s when I saw it. when I read what it was about, I was like, I have to watch this now. And I did and it was amazing. loved it. The epitome
Vivi: of college.
another fun fact there are no stunt doubles used in this film. , all the actors do their own stunts. does that make sense to you? Why are you laughing? I’m
Erick: laughing because there are a couple of stunts that I’m like, wow, they really over acted that one . They had to Nobu when he gets shot in the beginning.
He does like a cop.
Vivi: Oh, he completely, yeah. I mean, he went for it. He did, they went for it because the process of selecting these actors was that they started with like a ridiculous number and narrowed it down to 800 kids for the role of 42, and they put them through like a rigorous six month physical training battle.
Royal , battle Royal. And the ones that survived [00:13:00] made it in the movie. Oh yeah. Six months of like physical training in order to cast the. actors who were able to do the stunts
Erick: and act. It’s actually really funny, , it sounds like they had to go through a battle route to get to To get the roll. Yeah, yeah.
To get the battle roll. Dang. The Royal bars. Interesting. I do think that everyone, again, The dubbing ruins it, but everyone acts their heart out. They all are iconic. I don’t think there’s a single character that I’d say was forgettable. . this is gonna sound weird, but even in death, you’re like, oh, those kids died. Wow. Their death was crazy. You know,
Vivi: I would say some of the characters that died in the immediate beginning, I do not recall
Erick: I think I do because I’ve wrote the writeup. You did the writeup. Yeah. I know every character’s name actually now. think the only ones that we don’t see die are the two girls that are like, We’ll always be best friends. And she’s like, I know. And then later they’re
Vivi: just dead.
They’re just dead . Yeah. You’re like, what happened here?
Erick: Yeah. I think those are the only two that I’m like, I don’t know why they just dead off screen. Everyone else got like a, at least a flash of how they died. Yeah. Those two were [00:14:00] just like slowmo flashback to them saying they’re best friends.
Vivi: that is pretty much all I have for fun facts.
Hmm. Maybe have one or two more to sprinkle in as we go, but
Erick: I’m excited for more. You got a battle royal for this uh, speed run though. I
Vivi: can tell you right now. We saw this movie last week and I remember almost nothing.
Erick: I should have 3D printed a collar. Oh. And put it on my neck. They’re in the, they’re in the speed run. You could,
Vivi: Put that in. Oh,
Erick: yes. That’s a good idea. Are you ready then?
Vivi: I, I really don’t remember
Erick: anything. Do your best.
Vivi: Are we watching ? Some
Erick: Kids Blue.
Vivi: Oh, I guess that was comfort content. I was watching Bluey
Erick: while I was sick. Blue is a good show. It’s cute. You’ve seen it. Oh well. We’ve watched a couple episodes with our friends. I really like the uh, hide and SE one. not Was it the uh, they’re looking, they’re backtracking their steps to find out where they left something.
Something. Yeah. Yeah. And the dad’s like messing with him the whole time. Yeah, I like that one. Oh, you would do absolutely
Vivi: not.
Erick: 3, 2, 1. Bad oriel.
Okay.
Vivi: We open on like a bunch of flashing cameras [00:15:00] um, like media coverage on this little girl. It’s a little girl that’s like holding a bear, but she’s covered in blood and everyone’s like, she’s the winner of this year’s battle royale.
We may or may not have gotten like a weird introductions before or after this, but it did not really make a lot of sense to me other than that the government does this to make adolescents pay for what they did. Stop laughing. Um, We cut to this class. Uh, That’s obviously gonna be the next one selected.
Uh, The, one of the kids like stabs, the teacher. My mom’s calling me right now. Um, That is really distracting me. . Okay, so basically they go on a class trip and it’s like their school trip and they’re knocked out and they wake up in a classroom where they’re basically given the, in instructions of batter.
Royal, they all have to fucking kill each other and one kid has to be left. They’re thrown out there into the world. There’s two transfer students who are like really good at killing for some reason. And then um, everybody dies yet except three people who teamed up together. The main
Erick: characters. . Okay. . Whew.
You [00:16:00] know, I think this is like the only one that actually works with that. It is.
Vivi: I finally made, I should have worn the shirt today. You should have,
Erick: I should been perfect. I didn’t plan ahead. I was laughing at the beginning because you spent so much time on the interest scene where they showed the little girl who won and I was just laughing cuz of the reporter.
I can’t tell you how many times. She’s like, it’s a girl. It’s a girl. Is she smiling? It’s a girl. Yeah, it’s a girl. Play that audio at like a birthing . it’s a girl. Is she smiling
Vivi: that Oh my God. Is she smiling?
Erick: It’s a girl. Repeat. It’s a girl. It’s a girl. . Is that Mario?
Vivi: Yeah. That was my attempt at that.
Erick: Well that was a really good job. You did it under a minute. Barely . I’m ready to jump into it if you are.
I also want to get your thoughts around like, does this count as a horror movie
Vivi: I would say yes. Because it classifies as a dystopian future. And I think it points out the horrors of a fascist government. Now, I don’t know what the political climate of Japan was at [00:17:00] the time, but in the way that, let’s say if you’re not familiar with this movie, but you’re familiar with the Hunger Games, it’s a fantasy.
But there is like horrific ex committed on children. , I think you could get away with
classifying
Erick: this as horror. Yeah. Cuz it’s also playing with the fact that dictatorship would lead to something like this. Where the youth has no say in anything to do with their future because you have to do what we’re telling you or you die.
Which is scary in, in and of itself. I just wanted to ask that cuz I was like, is really actiony film they definitely play up on the murder. There’s a one character who’s like just so happy to kill other
Vivi: students and has crazy blood lust. Yeah. I think because it got banned in so many countries for its disturbing topics, for its disturbing imagery of children murdering each other.
you could classify it as horror.
Erick: cool. Just wanted make sure, put that out there. If you agree, disagree, let us know But let’s jump into it.
An epic intro starts that explains the country collapsed at the start of the millennium where 10 million people were unemployed and almost [00:18:00] 800,000 students stopped going to school, turning to crime.
Instead, just like the mc song, teenagers says, the adults were afraid and created the Millennium Educational Reform Act or the Battle Royal Act. I say teenagers cause they’re like, do you need to scare the living shit
Vivi: out of me ? I was gonna say, I missed that lyric in that song where they say Millennial Education Reform Act.
Erick: Millennial Education Reform Act. Yeah. Millennial. Oh fuck. it’s the Battle Royal Act. A news anchor walks into a crowd of people explaining there’s a girl, and it’s like, say it a thousand more times if you want. But she says that a girl won a girl.
A girl girls won the most recent battle that took two and a half days. , she repeats endlessly that she’s the winner and it’s a girl and she’s smiling. .
Vivi: a wee bit sexist, first of all. Yeah. You seem surprised that a woman won this . also. She was blood thirsty if she finished it in two and a half days, but she’s definitely
Erick: creepy.
Grinning. She’s terrify camera. She’s like, haha. Yeah, I did. Although I think you, you would go insane killing all your friends. Absolutely. Yeah. We meet Najada who explains, his mom left when he was in [00:19:00] fourth grade, his father hung himself when he was in ninth grade. Najada discovers the body coming home from school a paper that reads you can do it before throwing up at the site.
He says everything went to shit after. And we see a teacher at school gets stabbed in the leg by who we later see is Nobu. A girl named Norco picks up the knife and just watches as the teacher watches off his wound. narrates that the teacher left the school after that incident and we get a super heartfelt scene at the students of Class B and a basketball game against another team while the rest of them cheer.
Na Najada says that even. Even with everything going on, they always managed to have a grand old.
Vivi: so much happens in this movie in
Erick: general. . I know. It was like one paragraph and I was like, there was a basketball game and a teacher got stabbed . Wild .
Vivi: What? That’s high school for you.
The unliving scene of his father. I find it odd that his suicide note is written on a long or toilet.
It’s toilet paper. Okay. It’s on toilet paper. Why?
Erick: don’t think it’s ever [00:20:00] explained cuz then like he gets a flashback to it at the end and it’s what drives him to pull the trigger on the person who’s trying to kill him.
And he’s like, yeah, motivation. But I’m like, what ?What does it mean? Yeah. What’s the message? The students are on a coach bus having a good time when some of them notice military outposts along the way. NCO and Mag offer Na Nobu cookies before taking a picture together.
we learned that NCO was the one that convinced Nobu to come back to. The bus enters a really long tunnel, and we cut back to the inside of the bus where we can see all the students are passed out, except for Najada, who wakes himself up. He looks at the cookies while a lady in front wearing a gas mask notices him and knocks him out.
Vivi: I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this film show before, but I remember seeing like something about it way back in the day on like Tumblr. It’s a very, very almost shot for shot scene of this. I thought it was actually in this movie where a girl is on a school bus and she just happens to like bend over to pick something up and then the entire school bus gets beheaded.
Oh. And she gets up and she’s like, [00:21:00] what the fuck? Have you seen this? Is this a movie? I’ve seen the gif. Yeah. What is this from? I don’t know. I thought it was Bad
Erick: Royale. No, no, no. Unless it’s the sequel, but Oh, baby.
Vivi: If you know, please tell me. I wanna know where
Erick: that’s from.
The students all wake up in a classroom wearing devices around their neck and notice there are two other students they don’t recognize watching ominously over them.
The teacher Katano, who was stabbed earlier, enters the room with a bunch of armed men. The students are in shock. As Katan explains he’s taking over their class and introduces the transfer students. Kawada and Kema.
Vivi: These two are styled like crazy.
They’re the only ones like distinguished. They’re given like crazier hair.
Erick: A headband and like a muscle shirt. Yeah.
Vivi: I think we even said one of them is dressed like cowboy beat bop
Erick: Bop, except with red hair instead of green. The students start asking questions while Kaan writes br on the board, asking them if they’ve even heard of the BR Act. He notices Nobu and explains. He’d always thought he was a lost cause who ended up quitting school anyway, he points out, it’s funny that Nobu thought he could come back for the class trip.
Nobu makes a face at him, but [00:22:00] Katano hits him over the head and explains it’s people like him that are the reason the country’s going to shit. Therefore, they’ll all have to kill each other in Battle Royal until there’s only one of them left. way to escalate it so quickly. Y’all are a bunch of snot noses kids.
You know what you need to do off each other. Obviously, logical
Vivi: logic won’t learn The thing that I find odd about this storytelling wise is at the beginning, , there seems to be so much media coverage over the winter of the Last Battle Royal, how do these students not know about the Battle Royal
Erick: program?
You bring up a good point because Kawa, spoiler alert is a survivor of a battle royal as well, I guess, is it implied that this is like the second or third year because the girl won the other year. won another year. So it’s already been going on for at least two years. Yeah. How would they not know?
Unless the point is that because no Hak earlier is like, as much as shit was going crazy in the real world, we were at least happy in our own little world in the high school. outta sight outta mind. It’s not affecting me, so I’m just, but then you still
Vivi: wouldn’t be surprised.
You’d still be like, oh, I’ve kind of heard about [00:23:00] that. You know? it’s also kind of a big deal. It’s kind
Erick: of a big deal. It is. But ignorance is bliss, I suppose. well, it’s never gonna happen to me, so I don’t have to worry about it, And then once it’s happening to you, you’re like, this is too nightmarish to be real. Pinch me. Okay. The students can’t believe it, but Katano shows them their teacher’s dead body and says he was opposed to the whole idea.
The students are in shock, but Katano just puts on a video explaining the rules. The students are just in shock this entire time. Katano is the only one having a good time watching the video though. It’s actually kind of funny cuz he is acting like a little child.
The teacher’s like, hello, class B, and he’s like, hello, hi. Clapping and shit. Yeah. I
Vivi: think this teacher is crepe. For a lot of reasons, that we’ll find out.
Erick: The video explains they’ll be fighting on a deserted island. When Katano notices one of the students whispering and throws a knife straight at her
Vivi: phrase.
He was so ready to do that,
Erick: too. Ready? And then he’s like, is it illegal for me to kill a student myself? Too late? I mean, it’s too late. Yeah. , the students run in a panic as Kaan pulls his knife out of her face, but the soldiers should just shoot warning shots for the students to [00:24:00] get back. One of the shots hits Norco in the arm.
So Nobu attack just slashes him in the leg and shoves him off to get hit by one of the soldiers. This is when he does that like crazy flip. Yeah. . Katano waves. For them to get back to watching the video, as he explains, the island is being split up into different zones that will occasionally become danger zones.
The collars around their necks are shock and waterproof and can’t be taken off. They also monitor their heart rate and where they are. If they’re in a danger zone or doing something they’re not supposed to, they can send a signal to the collar causing it to explode around their neck.
What does that mean? Measures my heart rate, and they’re like, oh shit. It’s 110 beats per minute. What are they doing?
Vivi: They’re panicking. They’re fighting for their fucking lives.
Erick: Noble goes off. So Katano makes an example of him by turning his collar on. The color starts to beep and flash red as Kitano says. The rest of them should get away from him. The students shove him away while Nobu screams for help until finally his neck explodes right in front of Najada brain blood everywhere.
they all try to like stop him, but they’re all also kind of like, get away from me. . Yeah. including Najada and [00:25:00] Nordi.
Vivi: Well, I don’t know what you would do at this point.
Erick: Do you save your friend? Do you believe what they’re saying? They just killed the kid.
Vivi: Clearly they have no intention of. Keeping
Erick: you guys alive. Ketan hates this guy cause he stabbed him. He
Vivi: was again, just waiting for
Erick: this.
Now how that cries over Novo’s body, finding the picture they took earlier.
We also get a title card that says, do you have a crush on anyone? Which comes out of nowhere. .
Vivi: There is a lot of
Erick: random flashbacks. Angrily tries going for katano, but the other students pin him down. So the video continues. They’ll have only three days and if there isn’t only one survivor, they’ll kill all of them. MEK asks why they were chosen and why they’re doing it.
So Katano explains it was random and that it’s their fault for disrespecting adults. They’ll have to fight to survive and decide whether their survival is even worth it. I feel like there’s more to that, right? I don’t think it was just because you suck and adults are like, you need to be disciplined.
I was
Vivi: gonna say that those stakes are very high. You disrespect an adult, you fucking die Yeah. I think
Erick: it’s a bit intense. the part that has meaning is decide whether your [00:26:00] survival means anything, are you gonna grow up and be somebody or are you gonna just like throw your whole life away?
Which is not the way you should teach anyone this lesson. No, men enter the room with a rack full of bags and the video explains, they’ll all get some food, water, a map compass, and one random emphasis on random weapon. Yeah.
The video then calls out each student by numbers so they can get their bag and head off. Each student runs and gets their bag aggressively thrown at them. I remember
Vivi: telling you I would’ve dropped that. There’s no way I would’ve caught it.
the way they throw them at these people’s faces, .
Erick: Yeah. Fucking chill dude. When Kawada is called, he runs out ready as hell, but slows down before we see the other Syrian in Kema called Kawa, runs back in bumping Kema, demanding a different bag, and Gaana tells the rest of them. These two are actually pretty dangerous, so they should be
Vivi: careful. I mean, we get it. They’re the new guys that nobody knows. , they’re dangerous.
Erick: Kawada has actually a badass here.
Keara also is like got this like swagger about ’em, but Kawada comes in and is like, fuck this bag. That’s my [00:27:00] bag. Does
Vivi: he think it’s empty or did he check the weapon? And he’s like, fuck that. I need a better weapon. , yeah, I
Erick: got binoculars. Right? Najada gets called and we follow him outside to f Nintendo with an arrow through her neck.
She collapses in front of him and before he can figure out what’s going on, another arrow lands in her leg. . Can you imagine? You don’t even have time to register the fact that this girl died, another arrow just comes at you and lands in the body that just collapsed in front of you. Oh my God.
Akamatsu stands in the distance with a crossbo. So Najada throws his flashlight at his face and runs for it. Akamatsu falls and loses his glasses. When another student finds his crossbow asking if it’s his akamatsu runs a hymn. So the other student shoots and kills him in self-defense.
you feel bad for the two of them because Akamatsu is like, what the fuck am I doing?
Vivi: Yeah. We end up seeing this weird moral dilemma between them where, They want to survive.
and this goes for all of them. We see it play out horribly later. Mm-hmm. for another group. They want to survive, but they have this weird moral high ground of, well, you’ve already killed someone so you are bad, like you’re a [00:28:00] threat. But never the, if I kill them, I’m in the same standing.
Erick: Right. Naja hid in a cave where they find out their weapon is a pot lid.
And binoculars,
Vivi: I would be so mad. . Yeah. A lid, a pot lid. At least that one you could probably use to smash someone’s head in,
Erick: but, but not clear as you could use to see if anyone’s coming, but like, how’s that?
A weapon? Not a weapon. No it’s not. Yeah, you saying work together or is it like kill someone to get a better one? Probably that. Najada says he hopes they can all make it out alive, but NCO says she doesn’t trust any of them and has a flashback to the other girls roasting her in a bathroom.
asks if she’s scared of him, but she says he’s the only one she trusts.
NCO reminds him of Nobu and we get this odd flashback to Nana Ha and Nobu talking about how Nobu has a crush on NCO and invited him back to school. NCO blames herself for inviting him back Now that he’s dead and Najada says he’s going to get revenge for him and protect her until the end.
Vivi: Yeah. There is this obvious romance that goes on between these two characters.
It’s, it’s just odd, right? Like there’s [00:29:00] no buildup really. Not that much chemistry.
Erick: Well, they’re ninth graders. How much chemistry can they really have other than class? Got ‘ em. and I don’t think we need to explain it. There’s literally a character later who’s like, entire storyline is that he’s looking for a girl who he loves and she’s like, bro, you’ve never even said a word
Vivi: to me.
That makes more sense to me. Cuz that feels genuinely high school.
Erick: True. I mean, sort does this if Najada like the whole time, let’s say, knew that Nobu liked her he likes her too, but he’s always kind of like, stood off because his friend likes her. Turns out she likes him too, what is it? Platonic glove?
Vivi: I suppose so It’s just makes sense because without the motivation of his best friend cared for this girl, so therefore I’m going to protect her. Them teaming up wouldn’t make too much sense off the bat. Right.
Erick: Meanwhile, soldiers lets kitano know that ke yamas been taken hostage by Numa and his gang.
We see the gang throwing ke yama around while saying they’re not going to kill each other, but he spits in one of their faces and takes their machine gun, giving him the upper hand to kill everyone at once. Before he leaves, he takes another handgun [00:30:00] and some grenades.
So now he’s super equipped elsewhere. Two students decide they’re not gonna play the game and throw themselves off a cliff.
Vivi: Sadly. This is so sad. It’s so Romeo and Juliet.
Erick: girl is clearly accepted. I’m not playing this shit and I’m not gonna give them the satisfaction, satisfaction, And the guy’s like, Crying his eyes out definitely portrays the turmoil in your head in a moment like that. in the shed. Looks over photos of memorial when someone comes in through her door, magi puts up her taser, but realize it’s mitsuko.
Mitsuko messes with her asking if she can come in and Magi tries to make peace, saying, although their groups were never friendly to each other, they’re all right. Right. Ugh. This is also where we see the iconic like grin with the light. It’s masuko with the flashlight. Meko sees the pictures of menora causing Mui to let her guard down.
Masuko jokes around with her taser and when she offers it back, she attacks mug gummy, putting her sickle around her neck. She says she found two students hung next door and doesn’t want to dialect them before pulling on the sickle to rip Mimi’s neck out. , I think it’s implied that the couple next door got [00:31:00] hung themselves was also a couple like the people from the cliff.
But then later I can’t tell if the dub was wrong, a girl accuses masuko of like sleeping with them before they hung themselves. And I’m like, what is this story I can thrown in this stuff that I don’t understand is happening?
Vivi: I think there’s definitely just bad translation in the dub. Again, I think this movie deserves a second watch on my end, at least to fully understand what we’re missing here.
Cuz yeah, I don’t get this plot. I kind of get the plot for this character, but it’s lost a little bit.
Erick: The next morning Katano calls out the names of all the dead students so far before giving all the danger zones in their times. I can’t hear it,
Vivi: Danger zone Without thinking of that song. uh, way to the Dangerous .
You’ve never heard this song?
Erick: No. NCO realizes Magi is dead.
But Najada pushes her along because they’re in a danger zone. They’re ambushed by Okie, who attacks them with an ax. Najada uses the lid to defend himself, so he ends up working out. but they fall down a hill causing Okie to lodge the ax in his own head. We don’t truly see whether Okie put it in his [00:32:00] own head or if Najada did it in Salt Defense Point is that they were both rolling down and when they get to the bottom, the axes already in his head.
Another student watches the whole thing thinking Najada kk and runs Najada also, can’t believe he might have killed someone and yells at Norco to tell him the truth, but suddenly another student shoots at them while yelling out algebra equations. He says he’s going to survive and get into a good school, but before he can shoot at them again, he gets shot by Kawata.
I was like, okay, , he’s the nerd. How do we make him sound like the nerd? Make sure everyone
Vivi: knows he’s the nerd.
Erick: X plus Y plus B equals I gotta get into a good school. Here are my bullets. Did this turn into a wrap? No. I mean, that’s how he kind of comes out the forest. He asks them what weapons they have and when he realizes are useless, he just takes the xx and handgun from the other dead students.
kawa by the way, suddenly they hear kosaka over a megaphone telling everyone to stop fighting and meet them at a peak nearby to figure out what to do together. Bad idea, KUKA. Yeah. Hey, we’re over here. We’re a big ass red target. Come kill everyone. . [00:33:00] Let’s all actually get together here. And then those who are actually playing the game can just do it all at once and save everybody time.
grabs Norco to head that way, but stops them saying it’s too dangerous with no weapon, Kawa fires off a warning shot and Kuka and Yukiko duck for it. When Naja yells for them to run, They realize it’s Naja and Cuka takes the chance to yell out that Yukiko has always had a crush on him.
Before Ki Yama shows up and just guns them down.
Vivi: I find it so funny that all the little crushes are played into the story, but like, priorities, man, you’re gonna die. . Maybe that’s part of it, right? Like, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna confess my crush at least.
Erick: these are children.
Children remind the viewer that these are literally just kids and what do kids think about crushes and their game and being friends, algebra equations, picking on each other. Or opera. Yeah. He grabs the megaphone and puts it up to one of their mouth and shoots them so the screams can be heard nearby.
Dark Kawata tries to pull them to run, but can’t believe they’re [00:34:00] all killing each other. Kawata says if they can’t handle it, then they should just kill themselves. Otherwise they need to stop trusting anyone and run. He’s got a point. you gonna somebody, you gotta
Vivi: stop thinking that you could trust all your classmates.
They’re clearly offing each other.
Erick: Yeah. You’ve already witnessed so many murders. More names and danger zones are read out by Kaan. When we cut to Mitsuo finding Hirono waiting for her with a gun at her hideout. Hirono wants to know if she killed Maui and says her neck was slit with something like Mitsuko Sickle.
She deduces. It was Mitsuko because she found a tampon and noticed she started her period the day before. How would he don’t know? Know that?
Vivi: Yeah. Unless you’re friends and you know you’re on the same
Erick: schedule. Yeah. We get thrown into this whole backstory where he don’t know says Mexico has sex with all the guys and had Yoshimi date, old pervs for cash.
So she was probably the one who hung her too. This is where I was saying that like if you read the subtitles, it says the story about having yoshimi date old pervs. But then you hear the dub and it’s like you probably had meumi have sex with them before you hung [00:35:00] in them yourself. And I was like,
Vivi: Yeah, that, that’s darker, I think.
Erick: This is probably in the book somewhere. Right. Where Mexico has this whole like
Vivi: backstory, an interesting backstory that I wanna know more about, but it’s just completely lost in translation.
Erick: Yeah. Miko asks why everyone always gangs up on her, but IOL tells her to stop faking it, kicking her down until Mitz turns on her with the taser. MIT takes the gun and shoots. I know before she can get away, adding one more kills to the counter, only 23 to go.
Vivi: There is so many characters in this, so many that I don’t even realize who dies when, and I again think it could have benefited from a couple movies where you get to know each character a little better.
Erick: This would even work as like a series, a TV
Vivi: series. I think it would do great as a TV
Erick: series, like forget about remaking it. Just make it a show. That would be awesome. That would be better I think. Yeah, you hear us do that. Make a better
Vivi: show Netflix, buy the rights to this and make a decent show out of it.
Erick: Yeah. And if not someone else do it. HBO O Max. Somebody Hulu. You listen to the show obviously. Obviously
nona Hak finds that NCO has a fever before she passes [00:36:00] out. He carries her until they find a house occupied by Kawata.. Kawata helps take care of NCO and Wonders.
Why? So Kawata just says it’s because his dad’s a doctor. I didn’t write down any of the rest of these because it’s just a running joke that only works by watching it. But Kawata has this like running gag where anytime he knows how to do anything and they ask him, how do you know how to do this? He’s like, my dad was this a chef?
My dad was a doctor. My dad was an engineer. My dad was whatever. Funny. It’s a cute bit. Yeah. It’s Elsewhere, Suge Mork finds Menora and two other students struggling to carry a generator up some stairs.
So he helps them. They start up the generator and a computer flashes a program that Maor is happy to see works. They wonder how Sugimoto found them, but he shows them his weapon was a gps. He’s looking fork and but the others say they haven’t seen, Menora says they’re looking for a way out and wants Shi Moore’s help.
But Sugi Mo says he’s gonna continue his search. Miura just tells him to let know where they are if he runs into him. So Miura seems to be outside of Nobu, Another one in a naras, like close friends. when we get the flashbacks of the [00:37:00] basketball game, they’re all playing basketball together on this team.
Yeah. I mean, what I notice is the necklaces have mics, so he calls the others over to read his messages on the.
He tells them they need to find fertilizer, pesticide, charcoal, sulfur, and kerosene. Immediately I was like, oh, he is making a bomb. But these guys are like, what, what is this for? And he’s like, shut the hell. Go get
Vivi: it Immediately. I knew he was making a bomb. I would be one of the people who was like, what the fuck is
Erick: he doing?
Really? We cut to Chiu sub running while Suge Moore rides a bike behind her. And I didn’t realize it till the second watch that they’re not wearing the colors in this flashback scene. We realize that it’s just her imagination when she turns back to look at Sugi Muk Sgi Muk again is that guy who we just saw with the GPS unit. She takes a break from running when Nita finds her. Nita is the guy who we saw killed the other dude with the Crossbo on accident. Yes. He ends up being a real creep. He asks her if she’s a virgin, just to make fun of Zubi Muk for not being a man enough. This pisses shk off, but Nita continues and asks if she’ll have sex with him.
She rejects him and stands her ground that if he doesn’t let her go and tries to kill her, she’s gonna do everything [00:38:00] she can to kill him. He says he’ll force himself on her, but she yells try it, causing him to stumble back fire a shot. It grazes her face and ominously, she’s like, you son of a bitch.
Like she’s menacing this person who plays Chico. She ends up being in KBA later on.
Vivi: Oh, that was my fun fact. You still Oh, . Yeah, .
She plays Gogo, YouBar.
Mm-hmm. in Kill Bell. I have never seen Kill
Erick: Bell. Oh. Ooh. She has like a really iconic role. I think her death is also. , like iconic, ingrained
Vivi: in my mind. Yeah. Would kill Bill be a horror, because I’ve seen some of the kills in that and it looks pretty gory.
Erick: Our exaggerated kills in anything horror. This is an interesting
Vivi: question.
What passes the threshold into horror?
Erick: Don’t fight us. I don’t care. I’m gonna just say if it’s scary to someone, it’s horror.
Okay. She texts him with her knife and finally manages to pin him down and stab him first in the crotch over and over, and then into his chest. Good for her. Yeah, because fuck this guy.
Vivi: You do like her. I could see why she was probably cast in kill Bell after this.
Erick: Yeah. [00:39:00] She, she’s like, oh, I was chilled, but the moment you crossed the line,
Vivi: I’m, but you fucked around and now you gotta find out.
Erick: Miko watches behind the bushes and makes eye contact with Chiusa before shooting at her, but she goes up, manages to get away. However, it doesn’t look like she gusta got away without being hit. Suge mod finds her, but she thinks it’s another trick before he assures her. He’s real. He sits her up and before she dies, she asks him whether she’s the one he loved.
She knows it’s not her, but uses her last breath to say he looks really
Vivi: cool. . Pretty sad. You couldn’t lie to her. Dude, she’s dying. .
Erick: I feel bad for her. Yeah, cuz I’m like, she clearly loves And then the girl he ends up loving, it’s like he’s never even talked. He’s to you before. It really is high school crush drama.
I just wanted to tell you, you look really cool.
Vivi: again. Is that a translation
Erick: thing or, yeah, Katana yells out only three names this time and says they’ve been slacking. So he’s added more danger zones every hour.
Vivi: This is something that maybe I’m tainted by having seen the Hunger Games first, when in the Hunger Games, [00:40:00] they’re danger zones.
Something actively dangerous is happening in there, aside from everyone trying to kill everyone. Mm-hmm. . So there’s like killer animals, the mist that will kill you if you just touch it by entering that zone. I wonder if in the novel that is what happens in these zones, but it, it was just like scrapped for the movie.
Because what makes them
Erick: dangerous? If you’re in it, necklace goes off. Oh,
Vivi: okay. Yeah. Oh,
Erick: that’s it? Yeah. Okay. cuz your neck will blow up. Ah, that’s unfair. . . Yeah. That you’re just, oh, I didn’t hear the announcement. I was still sleeping. Yeah. I just got fucked. I mean, I’m dead.
I can’t be like, I got fucked. But , you just wake up in heaven or hell and you’re just like, Pro
Vivi: I was na like those photographers just a flash. And then the person didn heaven, like, oh, what,
Erick: what? Taking a nap, dude.
Kawata and the others are eating When he tells them his backstory, he shows them a picture of a girl named Caco and says they had to play the game three years ago. See, three years ago.
Vivi: So then this is well past three years? Years,
Erick: yeah. He flashes back to the two of them amongst [00:41:00] several bodies.
The time limit was approaching and we see them panic as their collars start beeping. The hug and Caco shoots kawada, but as he falls, he shoots back dramatically at her, obviously regretting his decision and holding her as she dies. He says he never understood why she smiled at the end, and that trusting others is a really hard thing to do.
Yeah.
Vivi: I wouldn’t trust fucking anybody if I had to live through this. No, I would also
Erick: not go back after my loved one just killed me. Yeah. And he says it really with a lot of attitude. he’s like, I really don’t want to know what that smile is about before she died. That’s why I’m here.
Vivi: That’s very good acting.
Erick: That is exactly how we said it. , Asks why he’s playing the game again and Kawata says they drugged him and brought him to make things interesting. He then says he’s gonna find out what CAO’s smile was all about.
Norcos, like, br She probably loved you and smiled for making her feel that way. She’s like, I do the same. And looks over at na. Nada. . Wink . Subtle. Kawata says he [00:42:00] has a way off this island and has them weapons. When they hear gunshots approaching outside, we see I’m gonna kill another student named Oda.
But when Carrie Yama walks away, we see Oda reveal. He has a bulletproof vest on. His celebration ends short when Carrie Yama jumps down at him from the roof with a sword
Vivi: celebrated too loud too soon my friend. Yeah, dude. Play dead .
Erick: while he looks over the body. He hears movement inside the house and starts Cripply trying to make his way in even sliding his bloody hand up and down on the window.
This is a. scene. Suddenly ODAs head is tossed in and reveals Kema shoved a grenade in his mouth. The grenade explodes. And while Kema shoots into the house, Najada decides to be the hero by acting his bait. For some reason, another explosion happens after he jumps out the window. It’s like a weird cut where he’s like make sure the nerdy goes safe.
The grenade already went off, and when he goes to jump out the window, another explosion blasts na nada out the window. It was the after shot. . Yeah. And then when the explosion happens, and Na Naja is like just outside the window, it shows Na Najada in the water shooting back and Kema running after him shooting
[00:43:00] It’s just kind of funny though way. It’s an awkward
Vivi: cut. . I did notice that,
Erick: Kema gives Chase finally cornering him while he realizes he’s outta bullets now. Now, Howk shoot some time after time in the chest, time after time,
Vivi: from this point on, everyone’s going to get shot 1,000,010 times and not die. Oh
Erick: my God. Yes. Why? Unrealistically just like flailing. Yeah. And then still
Vivi: having, just still walking towards their victim prey, whatever. Just constantly getting shot.
Erick: so
Kema just laughs and calmly reloads. His gun Ki Yama finally shoots, but Najada manages to get away with the help of Sugi Mua who was sleeping near. M and the others are done collecting the ingredients they were looking for.
And he explains His grandfather is the reason he learned so many things that they don’t teach in school. He takes the trigger out of his necklace that he explains what was from Obama’s grandfather tried to blow up Parliament with and asks for the others to join him to do the same here.
His grandpa
Vivi: sounds pretty cool. Yeah, cuz
Erick: He’s like, he’s out there somewhere right now probably
Vivi: blowing someone up. Just Toping entire governments. . Yeah.
Erick: at a lighthouse wakes a bandage up in front of another student named U K A. She says Sugi Moda brought him [00:44:00] here and left to find someone. So she reveals that five students were killed while he’s been out, and we see that two of them were done by MI while having sex with ’em.
It’s just in passing, like it just shows her putting her clothes back on and the two students naked, it’s too grainy to see, but it looks like she cut their dicks off So this
Vivi: character was just, Blood thirsty from the beginning. She was ready for this day one. She might have been doing this before.
If she won this shit, she definitely would’ve been doing it
Erick: after, you know, and it’s unsatisfying that they give us her backstory right before her death because Yeah. Had they given us the tragic backstory early on and been like, this is why she is this way, you kinda root for her. Yeah. You’re like, oh, okay.
So no good for her. Like she’s taking revenge on people who’ve always wronged her.
Vivi: At the very least, I wanted her to kill Kema. And it looked like it was gonna go down that way, but it didn’t. And it was very unsatisfying. No,
Erick: because they had to have the manly man,
Vivi: man, but then don’t make an awesome character.
So good at killing tragic backstory. Obviously you’re gonna root for them, [00:45:00] and I think that’s where this movie fails in having like so many characters that you don’t necessarily care about, know the story of yet. I almost kind of prefer her to win than nco,
we find out later that they’re rooting for NCO to be the one that wins. which is like some weird stuff with the teacher, which I
Erick: don’t like. the interactions that they show still are too innocent to imply that his interest in her
Vivi: is.
Erick: Yeah. It’s weird, but it is weird. It is weird. It was, it was my point. But they try to still make it seem like it’s just a teacher student relationship cuz he gives her ice cream and stuff like that.
Vivi: So I, I think it’s like this kind of moral high ground where nautical is like the virgin, the peer, the Therefore she must win and be protected. Mitsuko, who is sexually active, back word actively murdering people is not the one that is deemed worthy of being a winner. But honestly, to audiences like me, she’s the much more interesting character. ,
Erick: K tells this stuff to Najada and he’s happy to hear them. Andor and the others are waiting for him, and she [00:46:00] tells him she’s safe with her and her friends.
Haka tell me, Yuka and Yuko, she gets serious though and wants to know if OK’s death was an accident because Yuko saw it happen I know how to reassure her.
It wasn’t on purpose and wants to get back to Kawata to find a way out. She tells him to rest and then they’ll talk about it. sorry. I was like, I’m getting throw it off. is this like the fucking bee lines into romance that these lines take. Just
Vivi: really like shoving the romance
Erick: in there because she’s like, no, no, no, you need to rest, but also guess who’s got a crush at me.
Priorities. Uh, They started talking about who he likes real quick because she’s bandaged him up and she’s like, I saw you naked. You’re the first man I’ve ever seen naked. It’s crazy. .
Vivi: Which is like, does she like him now? Because , because I saw Naked. Because I saw you naked. Now I like it.
Erick: Yeah. Contact high.
Vivi: Your face not that great, but Jab Body is
Erick: doing it for me. she goes back down to help with lunch, but locks him up because the others don’t trust guys. Ka Yuko holding a Vila poison while getting a flashback of Na Naja killing.
Okie. U reassures her that it was an accident, and they go about their business [00:47:00] until Yuko decides she’s going to bring Najada his food. Yucca comes in excited that Najada is awake and tick the plate from Yuko, who we just saw, put the poison in it. Yucca just eats it up while Yuko watches nervously in the corner.
And she does kind of attempt to stop her, but she’s like, I mean, fuck .
Vivi: Why didn’t she stop her? Is she had time? My question for this entire scene that’s about to take place, don’t take it to poison it, because then it’s still gonna escalate. They’re gonna be like, why’d you poison it? And I guess you could.
I don’t trust him. Uh, I saw him kill him. I obviously, he’s gonna say it was an accident.
Erick: and if these are like your close friends, also,
Vivi: detail that doesn’t matter. But it bothers me that they’re cleaning up a kitchen when they’re in the middle of fighting to the death.
Erick: Nobody cares. . Yeah.
Well, you still gotta eat Planetarily. I guess you one died from disease and bacteria. That’s true. What happened? Oh, I was a survivor, but then I died a week later cause I got salmonella, .
Vivi: I didn’t
Erick: cook my chicken all the way. . Why? Ucca tells them about the planet to drink. How you could coughs up blood and dies right in front of them. This causes them all [00:48:00] to go in a panic. And Soto takes the gun saying they’re all suspicious. even the argument’s kind of funny. Haka says she’s the suspicious one for not sleeping.
And when Soto says it was because she forgot her sleeping pills. Haahs like that’s D. More suspicious.
Vivi: It’s not though. Again, this could be the translation, but
Erick: anyway, they all kill each other off. Except for Yuko, who hides under a table. Ucca took the last shot saying they all might have survived, but they were idiots.
They’re all just like flailing at each other, taking so many shots in the chest. So
Vivi: many hits and they still somehow get up and are able to get so many other
Erick: people. It’s like a scene outta the matrix. Like the girl gets on top of the table and is like shooting at the three of them.
And the three of them are like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Yeah.
Vivi: We are laughing, but if you actually look at the scene, the horror is that they’re little girls who are friends two seconds ago, who are friends two seconds ago, actively shooting each other like they’re at war.
And it’s sad because a few seconds before that their plan was just to ride out three days and see what happens. The one
Erick: girl’s like, we can make it till tomorrow. Right. and Yuko had to go fuck it up. . [00:49:00] She could’ve just been like, do you guys, do you guys mind if I just like go poisoning him real quick?
I’m just like one less problem to worry about. Don’t feel more comfortable, honestly. Yeah. We’re friends though, right? ? We’re still friends, right? ? So Yuko blames herself and opens the door up for Najada. Who wants to know what’s going on. She apologizes and runs upstairs while Najada goes down to see what happened.
He can’t believe it, but he goes back up to find that Yuko threw herself off the top of the lighthouse. I feel so bad for Yuko. Yeah. But it’s also her fault this all happened,
Vivi: which is what drove her to do that. Right. I think this is my favorite scene in this entire movie, just because it escalates so quickly and it plays on like the innocence of children one minute, but then human nature to survive the next.
Mm-hmm. . When a lot of people are defending. The writer of the Hunger Games did not steal this material. They say that both of the novels were heavily inspired by Lord of the Flies, which is the similar premise that kids left unsupervised will result to this. Mm-hmm. to murdering in order to survive.
Erick: It is fucked. It is a good scene. I think it’s one of the most memorable for me too. One more thing that I wanna point out. [00:50:00] Yuko is at the bottom of the lighthouse and NA’s like, What does this mean, ?
Vivi: True. He was locked up the entire time.
No idea what happened. What
Erick: does it mean? elsewhere? and NCO are just chilling. When we see NCO is having a dream. She’s eating ice cream with Kitano besides some water. They say stuck to each other, but we can’t hear them. Kean is also asleep, but he gets a call from his kid to hurry back because his mom is worried.
The kid clearly doesn’t give a shit about him though. So Keana just is like pissed and hangs at the phone. Na Najada tries finding the others and gets a flashback to eating with his dad. He’s clearly stressed because he has no job but tells Na Najada he can have whatever he wants Since he’s starting seventh grade, Najada just looks at him in silence the whole time until he flashes back to his father’s death and collapses.
He gets back up when he imagines Nobu waving and telling him to protect. Noco though, NCO runs out into the forest to find an najada in. Kawa, tries to stop her because they’re near a danger zone. He loses her danger , but NCO runs in in Mitsuko. She pulls a gun on her end, right when she’s about to shoot. She runs noticing Keano standing nearby, holding an umbrella. [00:51:00] Na Nara shows up and collapses in front of them.
So Keano hands are the umbrella and just walks off. He’s like, oh, you’re here too, . And just like Waddles off. Also, what’s the chances that they would run into each other so easily? They run for like two seconds into the woods and just like in front of each other. have this real awkward talk about how he’s too weak to protect her. So he brought weapons and she’s like, but why though? And he’s like, cause I gotta protect you and I’m too weak. And I brought weapons. And she’s like, so that’s why you brought weapons? He’s like, that’s why I brought weapons cause I’m weak.
Superman. Our friends, a warehouse where another student koki washes while hiding She accidentally bumps a shelf and Sugi. Carl’s Carl . She accidentally bumps the shelf and Suge Mo calls out her name. Sadly though, she guns him down and he tells her to run because someone probably heard the gunshots.
She realizes she fucked up and asks him why. But he’s like, you’re so cute
Vivi: when you murder
Erick: me. , he dies. Telling her he loved her for a long time, we flash back to Sugi Mu, straight up missing a layup in basketball. just
Vivi: Ls, L after L, man, .
Erick: She’s like, you [00:52:00] never even talked to me. How was I supposed to know while sobbing over his dead body?
Vivi: What am I supposed to do with this information? ?
Erick: She’s like, what am I supposed to do? And then that’s when Mexico says die and then just shoots her.
Vivi: She says it. So deadpan die. No emotion. . It is amazing.
Erick: We get a flashback then to Mitsuko is fucked up past all of a sudden, without going into too much detail.
She’s a kid in this flashback and her mother is clearly drunk on her or on drugs with some shady dude who keeps taking pictures of her. The dude tries to make a move on Mitsuko, but she shoves him down the stairs and kills him. We go back to the president where she says, no one will save you. And that’s just life. When suddenly she’s shot up by Kema. He thinks she’s dead and TAs her gun, but when he turns his back, she pulls out the taser and suns him to the ground. It’s like she puts up a fight. I thought, yeah, like you said,
Vivi: she was kill.
She was gonna kill him. It would’ve been so satisfying to have her take out one of the big contenders.
Erick: Right. She hits him with a sickle, but he reveals he’s still wearing the bulletproof vest and shoots her several times while classical music
Vivi: plays. Does a bulletproof vest save you from a [00:53:00] sickle?
Erick: I mean, she could have gone for the head.
Yeah. writing shows up on the screen that says she just didn’t want to be a loser anymore. So I think
Vivi: what we can imply here with what we’re giving, with what we’re given is she feels like she’s lost a lot in life and given what we’ve seen of her mother and her situation, she wanted to come out on top of these games to make the suffering be worth it and not be a loser anymore in her own story.
Yeah.
Erick: Would’ve definitely liked to see musical, at least make it make miko the like the big bad Honestly, that would’ve
Vivi: been more entertaining.
Erick: Najada tells the others he needs to go see Memorial as we see him more furiously coding while the others complete the bomb. They all celebrate that they’re ready. Andora kicks off his third man hacker program.
The soldiers run around in a panic as they look in awe at how fast the virus is spreading. They’re just straight up looking at the screens panicking, but they’re just like, whoa, he’s so fast. Whoa. It’s deleting all the files. Holy shit, dude. That’s crazy. Look at it.
Vivi: It’s, it’s so just admiring the craft.
Not even like panicking it. What it’s actually happening.
Erick: Kaan calmly turns off the power of As and then restart it, [00:54:00] giving, and the other’s time to sit at the Bombora says they’ve got 15 minutes to blow up the school but one of them notices someone near. . I wouldn’t have done this, but this is basically why the plan fails.
This one guy is like, I think it’s Nuna Hak, and calls out for him and he is like, Hey, we’re over here. But Kema real reveals himself and shoots him. Maiers back, but runs outta bullets quickly when they decide to run back inside, EMA gets shot down to.
So in the last ditch effort Malora sets the bomb off, killing himself in the process. Unfortunately, even with everything that this group did, I was sad to see that third planet didn’t go through at all. Yeah.
Vivi: Just, it feels like a whole side plot gone away.
Erick: I was rooting for them the whole time. I was like, oh, cool. Like, this is probably how
Vivi: they get out. And again, it would’ve been worth it if it killed Kema. But nothing comes to it. No.
Erick: He’s a true villain. Unkillable.
Vivi: That’s so boring.
He’s got nothing. No backstory. He just likes killing people.
Erick: That’s why he is here. It’s just having a grand old, the time. Boring. I told you. People who do shitty things. Get good luck. [00:55:00] Get good luck. Yeah. . Others show up just in time to see the explosion, but only Kema is left walking around the fire.
Kawata goes in the face, Simmons sees Carrie’s eyes are completely white with bloody tears running down each cheek, symmetrically like a super villain.
The fire shots at each other until Kawata finally shoots him in the neck, exploding the collar. the end. It’s kind of funny because like if you look at Kawata, the way he’s dodging the bullets, it’s like, like the matrix, the break dancing on the floor. Yeah. let’s Seema
Vivi: Not satisfying, right? No,
Erick: it is kind of just like,
Vivi: oh, now he is dead cuz we gotta wrap this movie
Erick: up. An explosion happened.
Mexico couldn’t kill him. All these other people
Vivi: couldn’t kill him. Feels like a story, a little kid will tell and then there’s gonna be an explosion, but he still survives and then he’s gonna get shot in her neck and it’s gonna be crazy. He’s gonna have cool, like blood in his eyes. He’s gonna have
Erick: blood in his eyes.
Yeah. Yeah. . I wonder if that was like a callback to like Michael. Oh, do you think in which. uh, Halloween. Two with a bloody mask. You think so? Yeah. I don’t know. we never know what like inspires him? Inspires, yeah.
Cause it’s in the fire and he is [00:56:00] bloody, they like their fire. Yeah. Yeah. Kawa are the only ones left. Kawa asks what they’re gonna do after they survived. So Najada says he’s never trusted adults since his mom and dad left him because they felt like it fucked. Fair point. Cause mom left and his dad was like, I hadn’t done
Vivi: Figure it out man.
Erick: He says he’ll keep fighting until he becomes a real adult, CO says he’s not gonna make it and pulls his gun on him. for trusting him too much. They can’t believe it, but he says he used them and fires two shots off screen while cutting back to keano. The soldiers make the order to go confirm the deaths, but Keano says, nah, it’s over.
and stops them all. The soldiers leave leaving Katano behind to wait for Kawata. Kawata finally makes it outta the woods. And in the classroom, Kawata asks why Katano didn’t leave with the others. Katano says he wanted to check something and waves his remote at Katas collar. He says, Kawata figured out how to stop the necklaces that it was him and not ura who took the codes to control them.
Hmm. That confusing plot twist. So Memorial didn’t do it, this guy’s had it all along, but we never see any onscreen time of Kawa doing anything like that. Anything like that. KA pulls his gun [00:57:00] on him for cheating. When an run into the room pointing guns at him. UA is surprised They made it and goes on to say he’s tired because his kid and students hate him, so they’ll all be going down together.
This whole ending is wild.
Vivi: There’s so much shooting again in this scene and nobody.
Erick: He shows them a kid-like drawing of all the students killing each other while some mid-summer ass music plays. I told you this painting and like the music and everything kind of fun like that very somehow and the mid-summer.
Yeah. Norco is the only one alive in the center and Katano says she was the one he would’ve had survive. She puts her gun out to him as he urges her to do it. Buk has a flashback to the writing. His dad around him said you can do it. And he’s the one who shoots Katano. Katano gets back up to shoot them, but only water comes out of his gun.
It’s a water gun. It still startles na Naja enough to shoot him again. So Katano collapses. They all take their callers off. When suddenly a phone rings, Katano gets up casually, walks over to the sofa and answers the phone Nonchalantly. He tells his kid he’s not coming home and we [00:58:00] can’t hear it, but we assume they told him they hate him.
He just says, if you hate someone, you’ll have to live with the consequences. assume they also call him irresponsible because he throws the phone angrily and shoots it saying No one asks . He eats the last of no Nico’s cookies from earlier and dies. Phar real this time. Aye. They’re all like what? Same.
Vivi: What just happened? So much comedy in this last few minutes, and again, we’ve already hinted at this, that he had this kind of unnatural interest in nautical and for him to do this painting of her is just incredibly creepy.
I would also say that she is so innocent that I don’t think if she was on her own, she would’ve been able to survive.
I think she would’ve been killed off immediately. Yeah. He said, I
Erick: would’ve had you survive. How? under what? Pretense? You threw Curam in there. My guy. Yeah. . What the
Vivi: fuck? You literally threw in two trained assassins .
Erick: They leave the island on a boat. When Kawata lays down in the back saying he finally understands the meaning of CAO’s smile and lasts words, he says, thank you and dies. As we hear him say at the end, I’m [00:59:00] glad I found a true friend. We get a screen that says NCO are wanted for murder and aiding and abetting a murderer.
They’re left to live the rest of their lives in hiding, but not before Norco went back to tell her sleeping parents goodbye and get the knife Noble used to stab Catano I don’t think we stuck around the first time.
Don’t see these mm-hmm. , but they’re all called Requiems, And the first one’s just another flashback to the students celebrating the team winning their basketball game. The second Requiem is of Nobu telling Ana how to protect Naco again. The third one, and it’s the final one, is the conversation that NCO had with Catano in her dream.
Kitano says she’ll get picked on for hanging out with him. She says it’s fine. And he asks if his classes are boring. She says, yeah, and he complains that it’s hard to grow to like the students, that it was easier when you could slap ’em around and grow to like them with character or whatever. He says, you can’t slap a student now, or you’ll get fired even if they stab you.
N tells him she keeps the knife at home and treasures it. So it ends with him saying, what does an adult say to a kid in this moment? Very odd scene. , what does it mean? ? [01:00:00] Yeah. We saw this on Tubie, so if you’re looking for a grand tubie, it is the diversion. So if you have a way to find the other non version, do it.
Definitely do it. But the sequel’s on there and the sequel is not dubbed, it was still Japanese, I kind of wanna check it out. I never even knew that there was a sequel and I kinda like skimmed through it to see like, what’s this one even about? And character returns, it’s the same actor, accurate and everything.
Okay. it looks like, it’s like the resistance to the Better Royal act.
Vivi: Interesting. I only saw that the sequel did not get the success of the first one. Which, what sequel does,
Erick: it’s like when you deviate too much from what the original concept was.
Right? So like if Battle Royal, the first one was, we see all these kids go crazy and kill each other, and then the second one’s like resistance to the act, and it’s not really centered around that first shocking notion that kids are killing each other. You’re like, well, this is just another movie, Okay.
Vivi: Interesting that they basically conned the game, right? There’s two survivors and they’re wanted by the government as murderers. if you are the single survivor, you’re welcomed home with [01:01:00] media
Erick: attention and, and setback like Yeah. . So you’re not actually winning anything.
You’re kind of tied to the government forever, which I think, I guess is another commentary, right? That yes, no matter how much you think you beat the system, they’re still gonna continue to try to console you.
Vivi: You’re still pawn
it’s so hard for me to talk about this movie objectively because I’ve read the Hunger Games and watched the movies and it’s all very much around the same type of political commentary. let’s say she was inspired by this. You could see the starc crust lovers ending up being the ones that win the game.
You see the continued ponds of the government. You even see them return to the games in one of the sequels, like the two characters are in this one. these movies. and books. I haven’t read Better. Royal seem so similar. .
Erick: Yeah. And I’ve always told you like, I had not even like watched Hunger Games and I’d already seen this and I was like, I don’t care. Like I think it’s good. Sure. You could say the plots like more well planned out or whatever, but like they also had Hollywood money. They did. And they had all this other like production value that was thrown at them for, and
Vivi: they had the plan [01:02:00] already to make the sequels make you attached to each character with enough time.
Erick: I don’t want to like take away from Battle Royal’s like Impact by talking about the Hunger Games. Mm-hmm. . Cause the whole point is like Royal did at first. Mm-hmm. Battle Round did it Well and to stuff a whole book into a movie like this one movie. Yeah.
We already talked about the pitfalls of that. You lose a lot of like, backstory. But when you talk about in 2000 A movie like this where you have kids killing each other, it’s crazy. And I still could go back and watch Hunger Games and then go back and watch Battle Morale and be like, whoa.
Battle morale is still more intense. It is
Vivi: definitely the gorier of the two. do you wanna give our final opinions away from comparison?
Erick: Yeah.
Vivi: overall, I think this is an incredibly interesting premise for a movie, for a novel. . It suffers from having too many characters, not enough time, not enough story for each character to get attached.
But then it gives you characters that you root for that I don’t think you’re supposed to root for personally. And then characters that I find to fall a [01:03:00] little flat, even though they’re the main characters definitely, definitely, definitely cannot stress this enough. The translation, I think, robbed us of a better movie experience.
Overall, it is a fun watch, which is what I always say. I will give it a 7.5 outta 10.
Erick: Cool. I give this movie an eight really like this movie. Watching it over and over, I don’t get bored. I feel like I always learn more things about mm-hmm. , some of these characters watching it over and over Because again, there are so many characters that you lose, like, wait, who are they referring to? Yeah.
Vivi: I think if. gave me this movie completely.
Let’s say they did the American remake and they gave me 42 names in two hours. Absolutely not. I don’t
Erick: remember. Yeah. With Game of Thrones. I told you I was Oh my God. Yeah.
Vivi: Seasons. And I was like, I dunno, who could not tell you one fucking
Erick: name from that show?
So now just crammed that into two hours and yeah, it’s tough. I think the action’s good. It keeps you interested. And then I think that way it ends quintano kind of being like, I’m not dead actually gonna go answer the phone. I think it really drives in the, you never know what to expect from the government
Vivi: I agree with what you said earlier, that [01:04:00] this film franchise would benefit so much from Aeries, not.
a two
hour
Erick: movie. Yeah. you could even do like a half season thing where it’s like half the characters are dead. It’s the end of season one that would leave you with such a good cliffhanger.
They’d be like, oh no. They’ve like set up all these really good characters who are still alive. And then in season two you’re like, ha, have to expect all your favorite characters to die. I’m pitching it here for you. Come on.
Just make it, we’re putting it on a platter for you. Just, just take it.
Vivi: I’ll also say that again, not knowing the political climate of when a dystopian novel is written kind of stops you from fully understanding the message sometime. And I could definitely see how that would happen with this film. Hmm.
Erick: Although, I will say it’s always relatable. Yeah.
Vivi: It’s always kind of a universal message.
Erick: Do you wanna talk about what scared Loki?
Vivi: No, I don’t know what scared
Loki.
Erick: Do you? I can only recall that he was growling every time that Ketana would announce the deaths because it was like a megaphone voice. we’ve said this before, Loki doesn’t like disembodied voices. Who does? I think it, who does like the ? I [01:05:00] think it’s like the fact that it sounds like echoy.
Yeah, Loki was definitely not happy to hear who was dying, especially when I’m sure Miko died. He was like, what the hell man? Give me more. This is the best character. Best
Vivi: character you wanna tell us about it? Loki,
Erick: We should take a video of when me, Ripley and Loki are outside because it really does look like Battle Royal there. It’s like me, him, her all just like rustling and throwing each other on the ground and then Ripley just running in circles in the shed.
Loki trying to catch up and then I’m like grabbing both of them and then yelling. Yeah. It’s a real battle Royal out in the yard ,
Vivi: if anyone cares for a Ripley update we’ve noticed that she likes to walk in circles a lot. Like she will circle everything and
Erick: everyone . it’s so funny cuz it’s like she’s prancing like happily.
It’s just so happy to be here. Yeah. . Because Loki will just stand there and then Ripley’s just like with the little donut squeaker thing and she’s just like walking around him in circles, speak endlessly.
Vivi: [01:06:00] Happy .
Erick: Backyard’s. Like what about ? You always battle rail? Me too. I’ve tweeted about this today. I dunno if you saw, but, oh, she always claws your ankles. Yeah, I’m literally living in, fear all day, every day.
because she, PS at me for every corner. VI says that she loves me. I think she’s out to get me . We’ll see
Vivi: all right, as always, we hope you guys had a good time here with us. You could follow us pretty much anywhere at Shake Out Scared Pod except Twitter.
Twitter Shaken Scared Pod. You could send us an email at shaken out scared pod gmail.com.
Erick: So we’re the show on Patreon. We have a bunch of bonus episodes over there, so make sure not to miss them. We just covered Better Watch out in December. I freaking ate that kid. We did a watch along. So if you like that, go check it out.
Otherwise there are what, 13 other episodes I believe. So we have some fun commentary videos, Listen to wherever you get to broadcast. Give us a follow out. Check out our drink videos. Send Lok, treat or Ripley Oral Vira,
Vivi: and okay, thanks.
Bye bye.
Erick: [01:07:00] Tein is a video game.
Vivi: Tein is a video game. , get it together first of all.
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