Review of Battle Royale (2000) by Hugo G — 06 Feb 2015

Written and directed by Kinji Fukasaku, (the Japanese sequences in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973)), and based upon the 1999 novel by Koushun Takami, this is a very violent Japanese action-thriller which you could argue also set the template for what was to come in The Hunger Games films, only this is for adults only, there's a lot of grisly murders and a lot of blood.

Set in a dystopian future, and after 800,000 students across Japan walked out of their schools in protest, the Government got revenge by introducing the Battle Royale act, where a random class of students from a random school will be put into an island, and they will have to kill each other in 3 days until one remains standing.

Some of the students are killed by teacher Kitano (Takeshi Kitano) for refusing to participate in the programme. When the students are put on the island, all hell breaks lose, but a few students, including Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko Nakagawa (Aki Maeda) come up with a few interesting strategies in order to survive.

The violence on display in the film is jaw-dropping, and it got banned or undistributed in many countries as a result, but it's compelling and it actually cares about it's characters as well, and it is a dark indictment of the way society could go if we're not careful.

Plus, Quentin Tarantino LOVES the film, and he referenced it in Kill Bill. :P.