Battle Royale DVD

Battle Royale DVD and Novel.

In 2000 a movie was released in Japan that would quickly become a worldwide phenomenon and gather a huge fan-base in America, even though it has never even been released here in the theatre or on DVD. The movie was Battle Royale, based on the book by Koushun Takami and directed by Fukasaku Kinji.

I saw this movie for the first time in 2002 when a friend gave me a official 2-Disc VCD copy of the film. This VCD was produced over-seas by Universal Laser and was a very nice copy with nice bright sub-titles, even though the translation was slightly off. I was glued the TV for the entire 114 minutes of the movie. Here presented for our viewing was a total blood-bath of a movie with some of the most potent political overtones I had ever seen. The movie revolves around the story of a group of 9th grade students who are chosen to participate in the battle Royale program which is a battle in which they must fight each other until there is only 1 survivor. This is a State sponsored and run program that even gathers media support. the students are gassed while on their bus and transported to a deserted island and fitted with collars that monitor there where-abouts and also are set to explode if tampered with. Each student is given a bag containing a random weapon, ranging from guns and knives to binoculars and pot lids. After that each kid is set out on the island to battle to the end. The tag line for this movie was "Could you kill your best friend?", and the story plays heavily on this line. We watch friends attempt to stay together and other students doing anything they can to be the last standing. I don't want to give any more of the movie away to anyone who has not seen it yet, but it is a amazing tour-de-force beginning to end.

The cast is entirely made up of 15-16 year old students, except for a few key rolls and the appearance of "Beat" Takeshi as the classes teacher. The movie also features Chiaki Kuriyama as Takako Chigusa/Girl #13 who is a menacing character. American movie fans will recognize her as Go-Go-Yubari from the movie Kill Bill Vol 1. Quentin Tarintino has stated in many interviews that this was the movie that brought her to his attention for the role of Go-Go.

Many people think this film was banned in the USA, which would explain why it was never released here. The truth is that the owners of the film rights have refused to sell them to a US distributor. Also I don't think the premise of the movie would go over well with most movie goers, yes we have a lot of violent movies out, but here is a movie about 15 yr old students being killed by other 15 yr old students. With the recent tradigies in our school systems this would greatly effect the view of this film. But we have to remember that this is only a film, and a work of fiction. It is an amazingly well done film, with superb acting and insightful directing.

There are several different releases of the film out today. The original theatrical release and a "Director's Cut Special Edition". The Special Edition actually has scenes that were filmed after the theatrical release and added for the DVD. The picture above shows the 2-Disc StarMax edition which was released in 2003, also pictured is the American Release of the original novel published by VIZ. The 2-Disc set features the complete special edition movie and a 2nd disc with extras. Movie is in Japanese with English subtitles. The book can be purchased at almost any bookstore and online. The book presents a slightly different story , but the movie is still true to its source material.

This is one DVD worth searching out and I hope some who read this do take the time to watch it.
There are several fan sites online that can give tons of info on the movie and production.

Battle Royale (Batoru Rowaiaru) 2000 114 min/122 min Director's Cut.