Battle Royale

[areaseven]

Battle Royale ( バトル・ロワイアル )
Toei Co. Ltd., 2000
Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2012
Directed by the late Kinji Fukusaku
Based on the best-selling novel by Koushun Takami
Running Time: 122 minutes
Rated R for graphic violence and profanity.

Cast
Tatsuya Fujiwara as Shuya Nanahara.
Aki Maeda as Noriko Nakagawa.
Taro Yamamoto as Shogo Kawada.
"Beat" Takeshi Kitano (Zatoichi, Yamamoto in Brother) as Mr. Kitano.
Yuko Miyamura (Asuka in Neon Genesis Evangelion) as the Battle Royale training video girl.
Ai Maeda (Kino's Journey) as Shiori Kitano.

Synopsis
At the beginning of the 21st century, Japan suffered an economic and social turmoil. With the unemployment rate at 15% and the country's youth boycotting the educational system, the Japanese government passed a new law called the Millennium Educational Reform Act (a.k.a. "Battle Royale Act").

It's a field trip to hell as a class of 42 high school students are drugged and sent to a remote island, where their teacher, Mr. Kitano, prepares them for Battle Royale. In a span of three days, the students must kill each other until one is left standing. While the class is joined by two transfer students, two of their own are already killed for their defiance during the game introduction. When the game begins, all of the students must set aside their friendship, honor and love for each other aside in order to survive and go home.

Lowdown
Battle Royale sparked a lot of controversy with its ultra-violent content and depiction of a crumbling society. It borrows a lot of elements from Lord of the Flies, The Running Man and Deadlock (hence the explosive necklaces on the students) with a little bit of Survivor on the side.

The movie focuses mostly on Shuya - who lost his father through suicide due to unemployment, Noriko - who apparently has a crush on Shuya, and Kawada - a transfer student with an agenda on his own. Aside from that, you'll see a lot of character development between the three protagonists and every other student before their last dying breath. "Beat" Takeshi delivers an astounding performance as Mr. Kitano - the twisted teacher who finds amusement in seeing his students die one at a time.

The soundtrack, composed by Masamichi Amano (Giant Robo, Urotsukidoji) and performed by the Poland Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra (Ah! My Goddess: The Movie, Escaflowne: The Movie), sets the mood with original compositions and classical masterpieces by Verdi, Strauss, Schubert and Bach. It's kind of funny how Bach's "Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major" is always associated with death.

In a nutshell, Battle Royale is the best mix of ultra-violence and a good story since The Silence of the Lambs. It's also up there with Kurosawa's films as one of the greatest achievements in Japanese film history.

Rating: A



References
Battleroyalfilm.net
Battle Royale Online
The Internet Movie Database Edited November 19, 2013 by areaseven

[Commander McBride]

I just gotta say, I saw BR for the first time on Friday, at Ani-Magic, and I loved it!. I need to find BR2, now....

[Kamui 777]

The best movie I've seen in years by far.

The action was great and the sociolgical side of humanity was awesome as well.

You can pick up the double disc Korean version HERE

A must see!!!

[Max Jenius]

It was hilarious. I loved it.

[Abombz!!]

Found the ending too mushy for my taste. They should have all died. <_

[LePoseur]

They should all be destroyed!

[Radd]

Hmm, I seem the odd man out. I finally saw this movie not too long ago, and it just didn't do it for me. The plot seemed horribly contrived. Putting random kids on an island to kill each other off and let the most vicious/amoral/brutal/lucky person out of the group go back home is just...it's..well, it's one of the worst plots ever. There has to be many much better ideas to get a similar situation started. The crumbling society idea combined with the twisted teacher idea work well together, but the idea of the 'BR Act' (at least the way it was explained) is just...well...it does worse than make no sense.

I don't think it was a bad movie, I just didn't think it was all that great. Simply coming up with a more plausible reason to have these kids on an island killing each other would have made the film much better. Maybe rounding up only the worst kids, kids off the street that were contributing to the decay of society, filming it for the entertainment of a corrupt populace, and lying about letting the winner go home, opening up even more plot ideas.

Maybe having the teacher have a vendetta against one student in the class (which he already did, but it wasn't fleshed out) and switching classes, so that instead of a class full of bad students, the class that was taken is taken in it's place with the student in question. This could have opened up a lot more avenues for developement as well, while retaining a lot of the movie's good elements that are already present.

The film has a lot of shock value (though it gets old before the movie's over), some solid performances, and a lot of great ideas. I just felt that it fell short of what it could have been. The plot holes present are just too big for me to ignore, and keep me from fully enjoying much else about the film.

[Abombz!!]

The only thing I found annoying in BR is that the deaths were either overly violent, overly funy or overly dramatic. <_

[Blaine23]

Wow... I agree with all of you!

It is incredibly contrived. But it rocks nonetheless. Mainly I loved the way that this film affected me in the post-Columbine, post-9/11 environment. In a time when everyone in media was scared to death to be violent or outlandish, this movie was like CPR to me.

Still holds up - campy? Definitely, but not as much as you would think. You totally get the feeling that the characters believe it's real, and that is really the most important thing to pulling off a film like this.

That and you simply have to love any movie that would never, ever, ever make it to movie screens in the U.S. simply based on it's violent premise.

[Druna Skass]

That movie alone with Soul Calibur 2 messed with my head. I ended up having this wierd dream once where I'm in a medival battle royal for something I can remember, anyway I was running around with Nightmare's Requiem sword.

[UN Spacy]

I'm also trying to get into more foreign films.....I have Battle Royale, Versus, and Shiri on my MUST SEE list.

[areaseven]

Battle Royale II: Requiem ( バトル・ロワイアルII )
Fukusaku-gumi/Toei Co., Ltd., 2003
Not Available in the U.S.
Directed by the late Kinji Fukusaku
Based upon characters created by Koushun Takami
Rated R-15 (Japan) for extreme violence and gore, mature situations and profanity.

Cast
Tatsuya Fujiwara as Shuya Nanahara
Shugo Oshinari as Takuma Aoi
Ai Maeda (Kino's Journey) as Shiori Kitano
Ayana Sakai as Nao Asakura
Natsuki Kato as Saki Sakurai
Riki Takeuchi as Mr. Takeuchi
Aki Maeda as Noriko Nakagawa
"Beat" Takeshi Kitano (Zatoichi, Yamamoto in Brother) as Mr. Kitano
Sonny Chiba as Makio Mimura

Synopsis
Three years after surviving his former class' Battle Royale, Shuya Nanahara forms a terrorist group called "Wild Seven" as a means to defy the adults and topple down the Japanese government. As their first act of terrorism, Wild Seven destroy several buildings in Tokyo on Christmas Day, killing more than 8,000 people.

One year after the Tokyo bombings, the government passes a new law called the "New Century Terrorist Counter-Measure Alternative" - otherwise known as the BRII act. Forty-two students from Shikanotoride Junior High Class 3-B become the first participants under the BRII act. Their mission: to invade Wild Seven's island stronghold and kill Nanahara within a span of three days. Failure to do so will result in instant death.

Lowdown
Thought the first Battle Royale was gruesome? It's actually nothing compared to the sequel. While the Battle Royale is still a battle for survival, the classmates are not to fight each other to the death. Instead, students are assigned in pairs according to their class numbers. If one of them gets killed, his/her partner suffers the same fate through their explosive necklace.

Just how brutal is this sequel? On the first 10 minutes of the invasion, the class loses nearly 1/3 of its roster on a beachfront battle reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan. More lives are lost as classmates panic and either break the 50 meter limit between their partners or simply stray right into danger zones.

But the endless gore-fest is not what many would complain about. It's Shuya's position as the film's anti-hero. Because he's a terrorist leader, he would already be branded as the villain. He starts to glorify terrorism as a means to an end - even mentioning the AK-47 as the international symbol of freedom fighters all over the world. But halfway through, when the students encounter Wild Seven, the movie once again depicts the Japanese government as the villains of the story.

Another issue is the new teacher Mr. Takeuchi, who lost his family to the Christmas bombings one year ago. He's perhaps more psychotic than Mr. Kitano of the first film, but his role seems to be much smaller than expected. And the outcome of his character in the end is questionable.

And then we have Shiori Kitano, daughter of Mr. Kitano. She joins this Battle Royale to avenge her father's death, but later on, it is revealed that she actually hated him. In one flashback scene, he even asked her if he should commit suicide.

It's also important to note that director Kinji Fukusaku died shortly after the first day of shooting. His son Kenta finished the movie. If Kinji himself had finished directing the film, would it be completely different from what we see?

BRII may not have met a lot of expectations as the sequel to an already controversial film, but the non-stop killing spree makes up for some worthwhile entertainment.

Rating: C

Links
Official Battle Royale II Homepage (Japanese)

Reference
Battleroyalfilm.net
Battle Royale Online
The Internet Movie Database Edited November 19, 2013 by areaseven

[eriku]

Any word yet on an official R1 release of the first Battle Royale?

[areaseven]

Any word yet on an official R1 release of the first Battle Royale?

None. There are reports of Toei refusing to release BR in North America.

[Effect]

I downloaded both movies and still to this day I can't bring myself to watch them. I've read summaries(pretty detailed on the events) on both of them, read spoilers, looked at images from the film, and read some of the chapters of the original novel yet I still can't watch the movies. Seriously the idea of watching this series does turn my stomach. Maybe one of these days but right now I just can't. I'd actually be more inclined to watch if all the students were actually bad and maybe derserved this type of thing but that isn't the case at all.

Edited February 29, 2004 by Effect

[Pat S]

Battle Royale did nothing for me. It was just ok, like most Japanese movies I've seen.

I like Takeshi Kitano's (the teacher) other movies though.

[Kamui 777]

BRII was the worst movie I saw in the past year by far.

Riki Tagueshi (sp?) was horrible, the main protaganists were freakin' spoiled brats, and there were no great scenes like the lighthouse from the first one.

CRAP!! CRAP!! CRAP!!

I live my life pretending it never existed.

[Panon]

BRII was the worst movie I saw in the past year by far.

This isn't an exaggeration.

BR2 was just completely awful in almost every way you can think of.

[areaseven]

Back from the dead! Time to bring some fans of the film up to speed:

First off, for those who didn't know, Battle Royale is finally available in the U.S. on DVD and Blu-ray, courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment. The official trailer can be viewed on the first post of this thread.

And now for the latest news. For years, there have been rumors of Hollywood adapting Battle Royale for western audiences. Now it's been reported that the CW network is in talks to acquire the rights to the novel for a TV adaptation. This can be seen as the CW's attempt to ride on the popularity of The Hunger Games - a film that many have compared to Battle Royale.

L.A. Times: CW Discusses Battle Royale TV Remake in the U.S.

[TehPW]

it wont happen... or likely it will happen but fail utterlly. If you can't make NC-17 quality violence... its not BR... of course im thinking the Manga, which did a delightful job scaring the sh*t outta me at times when it came out in the states...

[Old_Nash]

The americans will made a serie about the BR.

[Einherjar]

It will probably be the same quality as most CW shows these days if it happens. It also means the only way I'll see it is if it gets mocked on The Soup on E!.

[Omegablue]

If it won't have the blood and gore, it will fail.

[mecha2241]

Here's some more info on this very bad idea. I like where one reporter asks “You know what Battle Royale is about, right? I mean, you aren’t really going to have a show at this moment in the media landscape that’s about high school kids killing other high school kids, are you?” Anyway, here's the article from EW.com: http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/07/30/the-cw-battle-royale/

[soul.assassin]

Here's some more info on this very bad idea. I like where one reporter asks “You know what Battle Royale is about, right? I mean, you aren’t really going to have a show at this moment in the media landscape that’s about high school kids killing other high school kids, are you?” Anyway, here's the article from EW.com: http://insidetv.ew.c...-battle-royale/

In the light of one of the worst mass murders in US history, I felt that the timing was pretty bad, and they're having dumb newsies asking stupid questions that would predictably make legislators and other violence-averse people -- the types who want to "save the children" -- panic and shriek.

[areaseven]

It's official: There is no American Battle Royale:

CW Head: Network Is Not Planning to Remake Battle Royale

[TehPW]

should be no surprise there. someone said 'No' and the minions said 'Ok'...

[areaseven]