Batoru rowaiaru (2000)

Director:

Kinji Fukasaku

Writers:

Koushun Takami (novel)
Kenta Fukasaku (screenplay)

Release Date:

16 December 2000 (Japan)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Could you kill your best friend?

Plot:

In future Japan, the government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

Plot Keywords:

Graphic Violence | Destruction | Bloody Violence | Shirt Filled With Blood | Extreme Violence

Awards:

7 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Tatsuya Fujiwara	...	Shuya Nanahara - Boys #15
Aki Maeda	...	Noriko Nakagawa - Girls #15
Taro Yamamoto	...	Shougo Kawada - Boys #5
Chiaki Kuriyama	...	Takako Chigusa - Girls #13
Sosuke Takaoka	...	Hiroki Sugimura - Boys #11
Takashi Tsukamoto	...	Shinji Mimura - Boys #19
Yukihiro Kotani	...	Yoshitoki Kuninobu - Boys #7
Eri Ishikawa	...	Yukie Utsumi - Girls #2
Sayaka Kamiya	...	Satomi Noda - Girls #17
Aki Inoue	...	Fumiyo Fujiyoshi - Girls #18
Takayo Mimura	...	Kayoko Kotohiki - Girls #8
Yutaka Shimada	...	Yutaka Seto - Boys #12
Ren Matsuzawa	...	Keita Iijima - Boys #2
Hirohito Honda	...	Kazushi Niida - Boys #16
Ryou Nitta	...	Kyouichi Motobuchi - Boys #20

Also Known As:

Battle Royale (International: English title)

Runtime:

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

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Malaysia:(Banned) | Portugal:M/18 | Canada:18A (Alberta) | Taiwan:R-18 | Germany:18 (JK/SPIO) (cut) | 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:

Ai Iwamura, the actress who played Mai, the smiling winner, only appears for about five seconds as her character. She was then asked to do some stand-ins for some of the girls in the class briefing scene. In that scene, she appeared as following characters: Noriko Nakagawa, Haruka Tanizawa, Hirono Shimizu, and Izumi Kanai. The total time of her appearances as a stand-in exceeds the time of her appearances as her actual character.

Goofs:

When Kitano throws the knife and hits the first girl to die we see the knife land in the middle of her forehead, yet when he kneels down to retrieve the knife he pulls it out of her eye. (In later versions of the film this error was digitally fixed)

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

Disturbing

Battle Royale is based on the shockwave novel by Koushun Takami, which is a bestseller in Japan, and which has become very controversial in a very short time (and it is really easy to understand why). The plot is relatively simple (a class of junior high school students are forced to kill each other on a desert island, the last survivor wins and can go back home), but it is this simplicity that makes its strength. No need for a very long prologue before we enter the main act. Each of the 42 pupils involved in this "game" are not volunteers (no one would be..,), and of course they are forced to kill their best friends /girlfriends in order to survive this horror. The personalities and characteristics of each of the participants are of course very contrasted and even if there are some cliches, well, the worst has been avoided. There are even quite "realistic" (even if it is very difficult to judge what can be realistic with such a plot) moments. The transcription of the inner thoughts of the characters, which is one of the strengths of the book, is averagely well retranscripted. Takeshi Kitano plays a "teacher" (whose name is ...Kitano), leading the operation of surveilliance of this "game". It is very difficult to give an objective comment on this movie. Violent. Ultra-Violent. And bloody. This is for sure. The book has to be read for a more complete description of the hesitations and fears, but the movie restranscripts very well the book is the sense that it is all "absurd". There is no real meaning to this violence. The students know this, but it can not be avoided. It is quite sad that the movie dropped an essential background element of the book (the story in the book takes place in an imaginery Japan which would have not lost WWII, and the movie takes place in a slightly modified modern Japan), but I guess that making this happen in the "real-world" shows that there is no need to go to an imaginary world to see to what extreme behaviors humans are capable of.

Highly disturbing. Rated R-15 (forbidden to under 15), very, very violent, but nonetheless interesting.