Directed by:
Kinji FukasakuScreenplay:
Kenta FukasakuCinematography:
Katsumi YanagijimaComposer:
Masamichi AmanoVOD (2)
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In the near future, the economy has collapsed, unemployment has soared and juvenile crime has exploded. Fearful of their nation's youth, the Japanese government passes The BR Law: Each year, a 9th grade class is sent to a remote island where they will be locked into exploding neck collars, given a random weapon, and forced to hunt and kill each other until there is only one survivor left. Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill) and screen legend Takeshi Kitano (Boiling Point, Brother) star in this movie that has been argued, acclaimed and banned around the world. More than a decade later, it remains one of the most savage, shocking and emotionally powerful films of all time. Now experience the complete Director's Cut of Kinji Fukasaku's uncompromising masterpiece - nominated for 10 Japanese Academy Awards - available uncensored and unrated for the first time ever in North America. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (9)
The Japanese precursor to all the Hunger Games and similar style films. I rewatched it after years and it had the same effect on me as it did back then. At times it is a chilling, gritty thriller. At times it shows the typical Japanese enthusiasm seen in Japanese tourists. At times the film slows down almost to a halt due to the also typically Japanese sentimentality. The whole film is strangely unbalanced with hardly any detriment to the plot. I especially want to highlight the excellent soundtrack (Radetzky March on the Blue Danube was fantastic), and the unforgettable instructional video. The film was entertaining, terrifying, and thought-provoking at the same time.
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Battle Royale is a beautifully shocking murder flick whose absurdity you just have to laugh at (even out loud in a few places). It’s superbly filmed and edited, with locations that are reminiscent of both Bad Taste and Ring. But I'm not a fan of it. The million-dollar idea is half-baked. The initial decadent fun tries to come across as something more at the end and it only gets halfway there. *** SPOILER FOLLOWS! *** The important dramatic motif involving Takeshi Kitano’s character betraying the whole system and the rules of the game for the love of one of the players almost doesn’t work at all and the final ideas that stem from it seem overly contrived in the context of the preceding show.
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While I have nothing against Asia, extreme violence, or false psychology, presenting false emotions is inexcusable to me. The idea and the script may be original, but after 20 minutes the film turns into a pointless and unbearably drawn-out bore that cannot even rely on the amazing audiovisual design. The captivating camerawork and the musical accompaniment from the greatest classics, combined with the brutal violence, create a hypnotic synthesis. However, none of the characters grew close to my heart, and I didn't care about any of them. Instead, I found myself watching the clock, aware of the remaining duration of the film. My highly subjective feeling at the end that I had just lost two hours of time in an absolutely incomprehensible way, admittedly made me a little angry.
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A very bold and stylish thriller that owes its undying fame to its controversy. I still have the nagging feeling that even more could have been extracted from such an excellent premise and that cramming ideas about life or deeper meaning into a story like this was a low blow to the viewer, but there’s not much more to complain about. Fukasaku knew exactly what he wanted to achieve, and he succeeded. From the very beginning, it’s a very brisk and, thanks to the shocking content, rather unpleasant spectacle full of blood and violence that fleshes out the human character into the blackest form imaginable. From a filmmaking point of view, it’s an almost flawless piece of work, with an effective atmosphere, excellent soundtrack and developed psychology of the main characters, whom we get to know through small episodes from their past. Of the actors, the most striking is of course Takeshi Kitano, whose character surprisingly has the most depth and most important motive. I won't, and I don't want to ramble on about the message of Battle Royale as a vision of modern society, because it's as debatable as the film itself, I would simply say that Fukasaku is a madman who took great pleasure in letting his imagination run wild. No wonder Tarantino praised this film so much. 80%
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A killer game with a lot of blood and maybe even a hidden message. You can think of it as a big fling that doesn't make any sense, or you can think of it as a reflection on the causes of violence, on how, in a liminal situation, even the greatest of friends can become mortal enemies. Personally, I would lean towards the former, but it’s certainly worth watching, and I appreciate the originality.
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Gallery (41)
Photo © Toei Co. Ltd.
![Battle Royale - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/160/330/160330941_3e7b6a.jpg)
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