Batoru rowaiaru (2000)

Director:

Kinji Fukasaku

Writers:

Koushun Takami (novel)
Kenta Fukasaku (screenplay)

Release Date:

16 December 2000 (Japan)

Genre:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Could you kill your best friend?

Plot:

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.

Plot Keywords:

Game | Death | Teacher | Japan | Food

Awards:

7 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Tatsuya Fujiwara	...	Shuya Nanahara - otoko 15-ban
Aki Maeda	...	Noriko Nakagawa - onna 15-ban
Tarô Yamamoto	...	Shôgo Kawada - otoko 5-ban
Chiaki Kuriyama	...	Takako Chigusa - onna 13-ban
Sosuke 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
Ryou Nitta	...	Kyôichi Motobuchi - otoko 20-ban

Also Known As:

Battle Royale (International: English title) (UK) (USA)

Runtime:

114 min | Japan:122 min (director's cut) | South Korea:120 min | USA:121 min (director's cut)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Taiwan:R-18 | Malaysia:(Banned) | Portugal:M/18 | Germany:18 (JK/SPIO) (cut) | Canada:18A (Alberta) | Canada:18+ (Quebec) | Argentina:18 | Australia:R | Belgium:KNT | Canada:R | Finland:K-18 | France:-16 | Hong Kong:III | Iceland:16 | Ireland:18 | Japan:R-15 | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Norway:18 | Peru:18 | Singapore:(Banned) (original rating) | Singapore:R(A) (edited for re-rating) | Singapore:R21 (re-rating) (uncut) | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Company:

Battle Royale Production Committee

Trivia:

The magazine containing bomb-making instructions that is used by Shinji Mimura and his gang is titled "Hara Hara Tokei" ("The Ticking Clock"). This magazine is a real bomb-making magazine published by an anti-Japanese-Government activist group called Higashi Ajia Hannichi Buso Sensen (East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front) from the 1970s.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Utsumi is breathing when Shuya finds her body in the lighthouse.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Reporter: This year Zentsuji Middle School number 4's Class E was chosen from among 43,000 Ninth grade classes. This year's game, said to be more blistering than the last - - Oh look there! There she is! The winner's a girl! Surviving a fierce battle that raged two days, seven hours, and 43 minutes - the winner is a girl! Look, she's smiling! Smiling! The girl definitely just smiled!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Soundtrack:

Shizuka na hibi no kaidan wo

A film that the US, would never, could never make...

This film is film that I believed had to be made, and it was only a matter of time before it was. Yet it was a film that the US mainstream could never have conceived making.

Firstly to get it out of the way I will say that I loved this movie, although at no point did I feel comfortable while watching it. It had the power and emotional content, that while not necessarily apparent in the dialogue was visible on screen at all times.

I am truly glad that this film has come out of mainstream Japanese cinema. It would have only been made in the US by independent film-makers who would have basked in the glory of its controversy and felt oh-so-smug that they had created it, while shoving a moral in your face. While I actually have no problem with US Indie film I do feel that a Western background would have comprised on visceral content, and upped the content of cheap moral points.

For those who say the violence was "cartoon-style" and laughable must have been watching a different film. Whilst this film is heavy in black humour I can clearly say that the deaths are shocking in the extreme, and there is no relenting from the beginning to the end. Only occasionally does the camera pan away from the final deed. The only deaths that have a dark humour content to them, are those involving Kitano (Beat Takeshi) and the "lone" vigilante (those who have seen the film will know what I am talking about). Other sections, such as the "Training Video" are equally comedic, and absurd. Yet other deaths are shocking in the extreme, and show how the slightest suspicion can have disastrous consequences for groups that only have trust to keep them together, a truly shocking scene in the Lighthouse reinforces this.

The fact that this film employs Children as the main protagonists of the story is the key to the whole impact of the film. We have all seen films like The Running Man where adults fight adults for survival and it seems that much less shocking, albeit that film was handled in a completely different manner. Children have the innocence that makes the brutality of this film that much more shocking, adults in the same situation would have had the reaction from audiences of cheering at the screen as the hero dispatches yet another victim. This could never and would never have been the case with this film.

To another commentator who felt that this film sticks with you less than Scream, I simply fail to find this to be anywhere close to the truth. The deaths in Scream although bloody are nothing but pastiche of those films that Scream is mimicking, ultimately throwaway deaths that up in brutality in order to out-do the last one that have one or two psychotic perpetrators, who eventually get their comeuppance. In this film their are no victims and besides one exception there are no villains amongst the children. They simply HAVE to play the game or die.

Well I encourage all those who feel they can stomach it to go and see this film or find it available somewhere (as I believe it has been banned in the US). It is not truly a film denouncing the evils of Reality TV or showing us the future of that trend of Broadcasting, that is merely a plot device to place the children in this situation. The nature of the film lies in its deconstruction of Friendships, Trust and our views on Innocence. Go and see it not as a spectator of this BR spectacle but as one of the participants and remember what was important to you when you were at school, and whether any of those rivalries, hatreds and friendships would have been enough for you to decide who deserves to die and who deserves to live.