At the dawn of the new millennium, Japan is in a a state of near-collapse. Unemployment is at an all-time high, and violence among the nation’s youth is spiraling out of control. With schoolchildren boycotting their classes and physically abusing their teachers, a beleaguered and near-defeated government decides to introduce a radical new measure: the Battle Royale Act Overseen by their former teacher Kitano and requiring that a randomly chosen school class is taken to a deserted island and forced to fight each other to the death, the Act dictates that only one pupil is allowed to survive the punishment. He or she will return, not as the victor, but as the ultimate proof of the lengths to which the government is prepared to go to curb the tide of juvenile disobedience.

Batoru rowaiaru (2000)
  • Rating: (68,643 votes)
  • Taglines:Could you kill your best friend? » One Dead. 41 To Go. »
  • Runtime:114 minutes
  • Director: Kinji Fukasaku
  • Country:Japan
  • Actors:
    Shuya Nanahara - otoko 15-ban
    Tatsuya Fujiwara
    Noriko Nakagawa - onna 15-ban
    Aki Maeda
    Shôgo Kawada - otoko 5-ban
    Tarô Yamamoto
    Kitano-sensei (as Bito Takeshi)
    Takeshi Kitano
    Takako Chigusa - onna 13-ban
    Chiaki Kuriyama
    Hiroki Sugimura - otoko 11-ban
    Sôsuke Takaoka
    Shinji Mimura - otoko 19-ban
    Takashi Tsukamoto
    Yôshitoki Kuninobu - otoko 7-ban
    Yukihiro Kotani
    Yukie Utsumi - onna 2-ban
    Eri Ishikawa
    Satomi Noda - onna 17-ban
    Sayaka Kamiya
  • Genres:Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
  • Producers:
    Kenta Fukasaku
    producer  
    Kinji Fukasaku
    producer  
    Kimio Kataoka
    producer  
    Chie Kobayashi
    producer  
    Toshio Nabeshima
    producer  
    Masumi Okada
    producer  
  • Plots: Forty-two students, three days, one deserted Island: welcome to Battle Royale. A group of ninth-grade students from a Japanese high school have been forced by legislation to compete in a Battle Royale. The students are each given a bag with a randomly selected weapon and a few rations of food and water and sent off to kill each other in a no-holds-barred (with a few minor rules) game to the death, which means that the students have three days to kill each other until one survives--or they all die. The movie focuses on a few of the students and how they cope. Some decide to play the game like the psychotic Kiriyama or the sexual Mistuko, while others like the heroes of the movie--Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada--are trying to find a way to get off the Island without violence. However, as the numbers dwell down lower and lower on an hourly basis, is there any way for Shuya and his classmates to survive? Written by Prissy Panda Princess
Batoru rowaiaru
  • User's comment:Disturbing by Pierre MUSTIERE (pierre@sat.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

    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.


  • Quotes: Teacher Kitano: Here's your list of friends in the order they died. Teacher Kitano: So today's lesson is, you kill each other off till there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules. Teacher Kitano: Life is a game. So fight for survival and see if you're worth it.
  • Also known as: Battle Royale (Finland - imdb display title), Battle Royale (France), Battle Royale (Germany - imdb display title), Battle Royale (Greece), Battle Royale (Hungary), Battle Royale (International - English title), Battle Royale (Italy - imdb display title), Battle Royale (Norway - imdb display title), Battle Royale (Poland - imdb display title), Battle Royale (Spain), Battle Royale (Sweden - imdb display title), Battle Royale (UK), Battle Royale (USA), Королевская битва (Russia), Ölüm oyunu (Turkey - Turkish title), Batalha Real (Brazil - imdb display title), Batalla real (Argentina), Batoru rowaiaru 3D (Japan - 3-D version), Battle Royale 3-D (International - 3-D version, English title),

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