 Tagline: 42 Students. Only one way to survive. Tagline: A film that the US, would never, could never make... ''My favorite movie of the last 20 years... I wish I had made this movie.'' - Quentin Tarantino In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary Battle Royale act. 42 Students, three days, one survivor, no rules. Storyline: Forty-two students, three days, one deserted Island: welcome to Battle Royale. A group of ninth-grade students from a Japanese high school have been forced by legislation to compete in a Battle Royale. The students are each given a bag with a randomly selected weapon and a few rations of food and water and sent off to kill each other in a no-holds-barred (with a few minor rules) game to the death, which means that the students have three days to kill each other until one survives--or they all die. The movie focuses on a few of the students and how they cope. Some decide to play the game like the psychotic Kiriyama or the sexual Mitsuko, while others like the heroes of the movie--Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada--are trying to find a way to get off the Island without violence. However, as the numbers dwell down lower and lower on an hourly basis, is there any way for Shuya and his classmates to survive? Written by Prissy Panda Princess Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov on December 10, 2010 -- Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku's "Batoru rowaiaru" a.k.a "Battle Royale" (2000) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Arrow Films. The supplemental features included on this release are overwhelming - various featurettes; interviews; behind the scenes featurettes; making of documentaries; deleted scenes; trailers and TV spots; and more. Arrow Films have also included 32-page comic; 36-page booklet with various essays; another 16-page booklet with concept art; 5x7 postcards; and fold-out reversible poster of original artwork. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free. Paul Michael Glaser's The Running Man and Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale share similar ideas. Both films are set in the not too distant future, which according to some estimations I have done should be right about now. Both films are also obsessed with violence, though the former definitely looks kitschier than the latter. In The Running Man, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a cop who gets arrested and sent to a penal colony after he refuses to shoot at some hungry citizens. Together with a group of friends, however, he manages to escape – and ends up on a strange TV show where together with other criminals he has to fight for his life. In Battle Royale instead of one big superstar there is a large group of high-school students, forty-two to be exact, who are gassed and transported to an unnamed island where they are told that they have been selected to participate in a sponsored by the Japanese government game of death called Battle Royale. The students are then given various weapons, food and water and warned that if they don't play along the army will eliminate them. The game will last three days and the winner, which would be the last student left standing, gets to go home. And so Battle Royale begins, monitored closely by Kitano (Takeshi Kitano, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Violent Cop), the students' former teacher. At first, most of the players attempt to form small groups and defend each other, but quite a few of them snap and things quickly get out of control. Kitano routinely informs us how many boys and girls have been killed. While the game is on, memory flashbacks, most of which appear only in the Director's Cut of Battle Royale, reveal various relationships, which in the grand scheme of things are absolutely meaningless. Even learning about Kitano's softer side isn't a good distraction from the ongoing carnage. As sociology, Battle Royale is seriously disappointing. Anyone claiming that the film has anything meaningful to say about violence, or teenage psychology, or a fictional relationship of some sort between the two is giving it credit for something it does not deserve. From start to finish, Battle Royale is a pure exploitation film, which clearly isn't meant to stimulate the mind. Fittingly, the performances are over-the-top. A lot of the young actors appear notably stiff in front of the camera, which actually makes the various graphic scenes look hilarious – which is how I believe they were intended to look. Kitano's part in Battle Royale is also relatively small. If there is one thing that impresses about Battle Royale, it is the soundtrack. Masamichi Amano's original music, as well as various excerpts from Verdi's "Dies Irae", Strauß's "The Blue Danube Waltz", and Bach's "Air" from Suite No. 3 in D Major, amongst others, performed by the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, truly make a lot of the kitsch in Battle Royale a little easier to endure. Note: in 2001, Battle Royale won three Japanese Academy Awards – Most Popular Film, Newcomer of the Year (Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda), and Best Editing (Hirohide Abe). I understand that Battle Royale is a cult film a lot of people like, but I have never been able to warm up to it. Considering what Arrow Films had to work with, I assume that the presentation is probably as good is it could possibly be. There are certain limitations, so keep that in mind. The amount of work and care that has gone into this lavish Limited Edition set, however, is very impressive. RECOMMENDED only for those who can stomach the violence. Cast Notes: Tatsuya Fujiwara (Shuya Nanahara - otoko 15-ban), Aki Maeda (Noriko Nakagawa - onna 15-ban), Tarô Yamamoto (Shôgo Kawada - otoko 5-ban), Takeshi Kitano (Kitano-sensei [as Bito Takeshi]), Chiaki Kuriyama (Takako Chigusa - onna 13-ban), Sôsuke Takaoka (Hiroki Sugimura - otoko 11-ban), Takashi Tsukamoto (Shinji Mimura - otoko 19-ban), Yukihiro Kotani (Yôshitoki Kuninobu - otoko 7-ban), Eri Ishikawa (Yukie Utsumi - onna 2-ban), Sayaka Kamiya (Satomi Noda - onna 17-ban), Aki Inoue (Fumiyo Fujiyôshi - onna 18-ban), Takayo Mimura (Kayoko Kotôhiki - onna 8-ban), Yutaka Shimada (Yûtaka Seto - otoko 12-ban), Ren Matsuzawa (Keita Îjima - otoko 2-ban), Hirohito Honda (Kazushi Nîda - otoko 16-ban). User Comment: Manji from Canada, 15 January 2003 • Kinji Fukasaku made a film called Battle Royale back in 2000. He's made plenty of films in the past. I've seen very few of them, apart from Battle Royale but I'm always searching for more. Battle Royale is a film that has affected many, many people. There are rabid fans of Battle Royale and there are even more people that hate it. Let me tell you why. Battle Royale is a film that exercises its right to explore an idea. Many films have great ideas but most are poorly realized. Battle Royale is simply an awesome movie about one of the most hypothetically traumatic things that could ever happen to teenagers. For those that don't know, the film focuses on what happens when a group of high school students are sent to an abandoned island to kill each other. What brings such a bizarre idea to fruition includes civil unrest, teenage anxiety, and a nation literally terrorized by their youth. It's set in Japan and though it is just a movie it still hit pretty close to reality due to current problems with Japanese youth. In fact, the film was poorly received by the government who feared that the release of the film would incite riots and other such acts of mayhem by the same youth which it focused on. The problem is the same the world around. Young people are much more volatile than they ever were say 20-30 years ago and Battle Royale captures the essence of the horror that today's youth would face going into such a circumstance. Friends kill other friends and bullies all to survive. At the same time they get to live out those videogames that they loved to play at home. The problem is that there can be only one survivor of this island massacre, this only adds extra pressure to the already unprepared children who have to fight for their lives. What is truly shocking is that the actors and actresses who have been selected to portray these teens are around the same ages of their characters. They aren't the aging 20-30 somethings that just happen to look young; they are literally teenagers. This flick has some serious bite! It's such a great comment on how we are living in the 21st century in a time when frequently the fear for a country comes from within rather than outside forces. Certainly, terrorism is at the forefront of the average North American's mind due to the World Trade Center attacks and CNN's endless coverage of the horrors of said event have easily made the problem an international event. But before that the biggest headline grabbers focused on young people, filled with `rage', unleashing their anger on their helpless peers using an array of weapons (mainly guns). School shootings shocked the world when children started killing their peers. Battle Royale is not meant to trivialize school shootings and youth violence. Rather, it's an examination of the lengths which a government will go in order to discipline the youth. It's such a ludicrous idea. But the characters stay true to form as they profess long held crushes with their dying breath all the way down to naively trusting others who they've always admired as the popular kids. It's sick. Strange. Beautiful. Familiar. Different. And completely engaging. Most people are against the film because they feel that the plot is simply silly or because the dialogue is too hammy or some such nonsense. At the same time, those naysayers will praise films like Braveheart for its honest portrayal of Scotland's only historical hero. I loved Braveheart. I thought it was great too but it's bogus, for the most part. Certain battles and events really did happen. But William Wallace was no man to look up to. He raped and killed women and small children but none of that made it into the film because it was not that kind of "feel good" thing that would sell Wallace as a hero. Battle Royale, since it draws on fictitious characters and plot is far more interesting because it really makes you think about your own life. Could you kill your best friend from high school if the two of you are stuck on an island of death? To this day I refuse to answer that question. It sickens me to think of such a thing and so I felt disturbed by what those 42 kids had to do in Battle Royale. What's even worse is that they were picked by lottery to end up on the island. In the Japan that exists in Battle Royale, each year a random high school class is picked for the event. We are led to believe that all youth in Japan are bad seeds in this film but that really doesn't seem to apply to the class which the film follows. For all intents and purposes, they were innocent. The dialogue between characters is poignant, real, and totally innocent. You can literally see how limited their vocabulary and understanding of the world around them is. Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, some of the characters even profess love for their classmates without even knowing what love is all about. High school is a weird time for anybody. It's an awkward time that is all about experience and misunderstandings. So many people AFTER high school really learn the truth about who liked them and what people really thought of them. During high school there's always some social wall that stops any REAL open communication between two people. Being on the island forces unchecked emotions and feelings to flow out of the characters because death is on the horizon. Can you really label the dialogue as lousy in those circumstances? Obviously, there are intelligent and well-organized people in the world. Some exist in high school but for the most part teenagers are brash, foolish, and irresponsibly reckless because they've yet to learn from experience. They rarely have any experience. Teenagers put on an island to kill themselves will certainly not learn anything new and if they do it won't matter considering that they'll soon be dead. Naturally, some go insane and mutter those math equations that their teachers promised them would be valuable in the real world. Others feel the need to fulfill their sexual desires, who wants to die as a virgin, right? Still others try to make the best of the situation by spending their last few hours alive as civilized as possible. But the purpose of the game affects all of these teenagers. They have to hurry. If the battle isn't finished in 3 days they all must die which is easy for the people in charge who have low-jacked each teenager with collars that explode. Not enough to take the head clean off, by default, but rather just enough of an explosion to open up the jugular. They bleed out until they die.their hopes and dreams for the future go with them. This is a grisly film that doesn't specifically cater to gore hounds. Certainly there are some really disturbing death scenes and moments but nothing TOO over the top. The idea is shocking enough, there's no need to be excessive. At first this fact upset me. I wanted this film to be a bloody parade of carnage because I reasoned that it's just a movie. Just some form of entertainment that existed to please me. But the whole idea is sickening and compelling enough to satisfy on more layers than just the visual. In the end, this is not a film for just anyone off the street. There are so many sceptics and people who are unable to maturely grasp the concept of the film. These are the people that really hate it and you can't really blame them. For too long, Hollywood has been the dominant authority on filmmaking in the world. What was once a greatly expressive and thought-provoking medium has now simply become a trite and boring thing. Everything is recycled over and over. It's repackaged, re-sold, re-distributed to the point that people can hardly accept something new and radical and different. If it's not safe, generic, or commercial than the reason for a film's existence appears to be highly questionable. Battle Royale isn't going to change the world. I wish it could but the damage has already been done and now there is no place for a film that challenges socio-political norms or has subtitles. But that's alright. Films that matter are still being made even if they don't get the same amount of press or attention that the next Leonardo DiCaprio movie will get. If you enjoy Battle Royale then Kinji Fukasaku, who directed and adapted the film for the screen along with his son Kenta, will be able to rest in peace. The man died on January 12th, 2003. He was 72 years-old and all he wanted to do was make movies until he died. He got his wish. Summary: It's been two years since I saw this flick. What do I think? ... I am a fan. IMDb Rating (01/28/15): 7.8/10 from 123,381 users IMDb Rating (07/31/14): 7.8/10 from 117,444 users IMDb Rating (03/21/12): 7.8/10 from 68,036 users
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