Everyone plays the game with the weapons they've got

My favourite scene from Battle Royale isn't the bit where a boy defends himself with a pot lid, or the moment when a dead man gets up and casually walks across the room to answer his phone. It comes early, when the students wake up in a disused classroom and are given a lesson on the rules of the game. At first they're skeptical. They think it's a joke, that they don't really have to kill each other. But then their teacher murders two of them for annoying him. They watch a cheery instructional video which explains that only one student is permitted to leave the island, that it's survival of the fittest and that most of them won't make it. They are called up one by one on the register and step forward. They are given a bag of supplies and a random weapon. Some weapons aren't as good as others. Some are given a machine gun. Others a sickle. Some a paper fan. The bag is thrown sharply at their head and they run off into the island to fend for themselves. In this moment they have to decide what they're going to do. Do they play the game, hide until it's over, try to escape, try to rebel? There are only a few things they can do trapped on this island, and there are some people aiming at their head. Some are given the best weapons from the start, others have to steal or acquire them. With perseverance even the worst weapons can be put to good use. Those that choose to hide will find a cave and wait for the game to be over, until they win or the bomb on their neck explodes. Others try to find a way out across the sea or over cliffs. There are a few that sit down and choose to play a different game, to try and take the whole thing down and win in their own way. Everyone plays the game with the weapons they've got.

Those who complained about the ultra-violent blood-spattered teenagers just weren't thinking allegorically enough. Who wins in the end? Not the ones with the biggest guns, but the people who trusted someone and stuck together. Nice, that. It is pretty violent though. Especially the bit with the sickle.