The Hunger Games
How ironic that this title leads to a resolution is where the protagonists do not eat something. Also, a film for “kids” featuring literal bloodbaths.
Comparisons with Battle Royale are not fair for either side. This is a big plot about relationships et al, not pure social commentary about young’uns. It’s also very calm and not bombastic for a big budget action film. Probably this is the way to take the edge off the gruesome murders.
There’s also the anti-love story. Boy meets girl. Boy throws bread into mud, vaguely in the direction of girl. Boy gets into his head that this kind of action leads to automatic poontang. Girl doesn’t give a shit about boy. Girl gets roped into a deathmatch/reality show where playing the star-crossed lover can literally save her life, so she plays along. Boy gets even more fiery in his loins for girl.
If this was an old school story, the guy wouldn’t take no for an answer and he would reclaim her hymen no matter what, by force if necessary. This ends in a cliffhanger, so we shall see what happens.
There’s also a sub plot about the emperor (or pro-consul, if we keep the Roman references) being pissed that the oinks from bumfuck winking might lead to revolts he must quash with his mighty jackbooted army. He offers hemlock to the game organiser, for his tasteful off-screen harakiri.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.