The opening scenes are a little chaotic and disorienting (and that may be the intended effect), so a lot of first-time viewers, seeing the end of a BR program being depicted, tend to jump to the conclusion (no pun intended) that the scene is a "flash-forward" to the end of the events of the movie, and that the person we see is the ultimate survivor. Of course, this confuses them when the ending of the movie turns out to be different.

The girl in the scene with the haunting smile is not Noriko--in fact, she's not one of the students from Shiroiwa Junior High whose tragic fates are portrayed in the film.

The opening scenes of BR take place before the events of the movie--a year prior, to be specific--when Zentsuji Junior High's class 3-E are put through the program.

The girl is given a name ("Mai") and makes a cameo appearance in the sequel, Battle Royale II.

Some confusion arises as to whether Kitano was the one person who runs BR all along, or whether the teacher (or former teacher) of each class is conscripted to run the BR program for their kids.

In the novel and manga, this is a non-issue, as the equivalent of the Kitano character (Sakamochi in the novel, Yonemi in the manga) is an employee of the government with no ties to the class.

If Kitano had been the BR headmaster before, he hadn't been for long--two years prior, he was a mere schoolteacher. However, since we don't know much about his background, there still remains some plausibility to him being qualified to take such an important position so soon after leaving his old job.

One clue does point toward the conclusion that Kitano had been the BR headmaster before. In the scene right after Noriko asks Nanahara, "You never did get to taste those cookies, did you?", when Lieutenant Anjo reports on Kiriyama's situation, Anjo takes a look at the sketches on the table and remarks, "Already started on the painting." This line is translated as "Not wasting time" in some subtitles, which makes its meaning vaguer, but the more literal translation of the line strongly implies that Kitano has made a practice of whiling the hours away by painting...which means that he has run BR at least once before.

It means we should be together.

Yukie Utsumi says this to Nanahara when they're in the room in the lighthouse, a not-so-subtle hint that she's really into him. Later on, though, the phrase (displayed, twice, as a title card on screen) takes on a new meaning, as Nanahara realizes the senselessness and meaninglessness of their predicament.

How is BR supposed to deter juvenile delinquency?

One of the apparent flaws in logic in the movie was that the BR program is supposed to deal with juvenile delinquency as a deterrent, but the fact that 1) the program doesn't discriminate between well-adjusted kids and the "bad seed," and 2) the kids of Class 3B stared in dumbfounded ignorance when Kitano asks them about the BR program leads one to wonder how exactly BR was supposed to be effective. Obviously the answer isn't deterrence through publicity--even though the winner was announced on television, it doesn't seem that many kids were paying attention. Neither is population control the reasoning behind it, either--the deaths of forty-some kids a year doesn't amount to much when it comes to a population of hundreds of millions.

The novel is a little clearer, by establishing that BR happens not once but FIFTY times a year, and that BR has been going on for fifty years. The students in the novel were also somewhat aware of BR--they didn't know what it entailed, but they knew kids were getting sent there and getting killed; resigned to BR being a fact of life, all they can do is take comfort in the odds not being in favor of their class being selected. So in the novel, not only was BR a more effective form of population control (2000 kids dying annually for fifty years would make some impact on the population of a nation), as well as control of the population (BR engendered an atmosphere of distrust that kept the whole of the citizenry in check) but the kids seemed to be aware of it too.

So how does this work out in the movie? For one thing, just because no-one answered Kitano's question doesn't mean that no-one had some idea what the answer was--think back to your high school days and you'll remember some instance of your class keeping quiet just so one person wouldn't be singled out, or embarrassed by giving an answer the teacher didn't like. Kawada and Kiriyama obviously knew the answer, and they weren't talking. Many of the other students could very well have figured out by then that they were in a Battle Royale program, and just didn't feel like answering the question. Again, they may have known about BR, and known that kids were dying in it, but that doesn't necessarily mean they knew what exactly happens in a Battle Royale from a class' abduction to the announcement of a victor.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Fukasaku envisioned BR as a cautionary fairy tale, and like any fairy tale, some things are, "just because they are," in the kingdom. He eschewed the whys and wherefores and political and sociological science behind the BR program to take us straight to the effects of the program on the people participating in it; the heart of the movie is seeing how normal kids that we can identify with deal with the horrific scenario they are forced into.

Who were the girls who locked Noriko in the bathroom? What was the writing on the bathroom wall?

The girls were Fumiyo Fujiyoshi (she of the knife in the forehead), Mayumi Tendo (arrow in the neck), and Yoshimi Yahagi (hung herself).

The four black characters on the gravestone read "Nakagawa Noriko" (Japanese style, of course).

In purple on the upper left, written in katakana (unusual, as it should be in hiragana, but probably an affectation by kids and teens), is "chibi," which as many anime fans know means "small," "little," "dwarf," "runt," or, yes, "shrimp."

And in green, on the upper right is the kanji for "worm" or "insect," which can be pronounced "musi."

In brown on the lower left, again in katakana, is "busu"--the same word which Mitsuko calls her later: "ugly."

And in blue on the lower right, in kanji and hiragana, is "Shine!!"--no, not the English word, but Shih-neh, which basically means (in imperative form) "Die!!".

From this, I can make out that what the girls were yelling was "Nakagawa Noriko, chibi, musi, busu, shine!"--confirmed by the script found in the back of the Complete Guidebook tie-in publication.

The part where Chigusa is jogging with Hiroki right behind her is all in her head, either a flashback to an incident that happened long before they were taken to the island, or outright fantasy. Notice that neither of them are wearing collars at this point, and Hiroki isn't dressed the way he's dressed on the island (he wears his uniform throughout his entire stay on the island). Neither of them are acting the way they probably would be given their current predicament, either.

When Chigusa runs into the woods, doubles back out to the road and touches her collar, that's when she (and we the audience) are snapped back to reality.

What's the song playing when...?

The BR soundtrack is composed of famous musical works by classical composers, as well as an original score by composer Masamichi Amano. For a detailed breakdown of the tracks on the official soundtrack CD, including which parts of the movie each track is associated with, visit this page at Battle Royale Online.

For quick answers, here's a quick breakdown of the classical music references in BR:

Everything else is an original composition by Masamichi Amano. One thing to note is that there are several "motifs" throughout the film, and many of them are associated with specific characters and relationships. These motifs are usually not confined to their own tracks on the soundtrack, and can appear in part or in whole in other tracks. I've listed a few below; note that the names of the motifs were names I came up with myself or derived from the portion of the soundtrack in which they're most prominent.

"Memory" : usually done in reference to Nanahara and Kuninobu and their pre-island past. We hear a bit of it on the bus scene when Noriko offers the guys cookies, and we hear it when Nanahara flashes back to the orphanage (it actually gets its own track on the soundtrack for this scene, which is where I took the name for the motif.

"Kitano and Noriko's theme": plays early in the movie when we first meet Kitano and Noriko, and returns at the end when Kitano reveals his painting. The theme also reoccurs in BRII.

"The BR program": an ominous motif that's almost a play on the Kitano/Noriko theme, most prominent when the roster's being called, it reappears subtly throughout the movie, including a flute version during the lighthouse scene ("The War of Girls, Without Faith or Law" on the soundtrack). A variation of it is a recurring motif on the BRII soundtrack as well.

"Kiriyama's theme": probably the most recognizable motif in the whole soundtrack. You know when it shows up.