Went to a showing of Hunger Games this past night night…then came home and re-watched Battle Royale. First, these are very different works. Comparisons abound and threads of ideas are shared but in the end even if the HG was a rip on BR it is different enough to be its own thing.
What follows is about the movie versions of each…not the books, which are a whole other thing….HG is great and all but for me the one that had more impact … BR. HG is slick and cool and well made and when the horror of kids killing each other was shown BR did not hold back…HG softened the impact with camera work, fuzzy "drugged" shots…that sort of hollywood thing. I realize they did not want to run into the ever present kerfuffle with a movie ratings board, which BR did not shy away from, as keeping it PG13 means more tickets and more people seeing it.
Could HG have had more of an impact? Given the source material heck yeah. I hope that they fix that in the next two installments. When I look at HG and BR that depth is decidedly in favor of BR. The fella behind BR, Kinji Fukasaku, brought a lot to the screen… Gary Ross, who is doing up the HG series, needs to dig a bit deeper into the source material and the issues they raise. Can Ross get as close to his subject as Fukasaku? Here is a bit about Fukasau and why he did BR
"Kinji Fukasaku stated that he decided to direct the film because the novel it was adapted from reminded him of his time as a 15-year-old munitions factory worker during World War II. At that time, his class was made to work in a munitions factory. In July 1945, the factory came under artillery fire. The children could not escape so they dived under each other for cover. The surviving members of the class had to dispose of the corpses. At that point, Fukasaku realized that the Japanese government was lying about World War II, and he developed a burning hatred of adults in general that he maintained for a long time afterwards"
With that sort of connection to the material it is hard to think bringing less to the table will rise above. Time will tell though, there are two more installments to go for the HG series. I look forward to seeing Donald Sutherland fill out the President Snow thread.
