Battle Royale - Two Disc Special Edition

Kinji Fukasaku made his name in Japan by directing yakuza films. This, his final completed film, however, may be the one for which he will be remembered outside of Japan. It is the near future, and in the prologue the it is explained to the viewer that Japan's youth have run wild and begun to make the adults nervous. In order to combat the new plague, the Japanese parliament has enacted the Battle Royale, a twisted solution to the problem that both eliminates some children and stands as a warning beacon to those who would think of running amok again. The Battle Royale is a game of elimination, a "random" class of 14 and 15 year olds is chosen and swept off to a remote island, where they are herded into a classroom to have the rules explained. The class must kill each other off over the course of three days, the last child standing is the winner. There can be only one, if there are any more, the electronic collars that have mysteriously appeared around their necks will explode. It is very interesting to watch this film because within its context as a cautionary tale, there lies humor, pathos, and real life. These children have been friends since a very young age, many of them are in relationships with each other, yet they cannot afford to harbor romantic notions anymore. Some choose to ban together to escape the more muderous and reckless children, some choose to try and find a way out, and some just kill like they are supposed to. Though it seems like every child for themselves, not every one has been given an equal advantage, their weapons range from automatic firearms to flahslights, to pots and pans. This also creates a hierarchy among those children who are trying to ban together as they must recognize superior firepower among themselves. Fukasaku's vision was very clear, and his final film is a worthy testament to his ability. Some familiar faces pepper the proceedings as well, Chiaki Kuriyama, who played Go Go Yubari in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Japanese omnipresent megastar Takeshi Kitano stars as the chosen class's teacher, who plays more of a role in the proceedings than is initially thought. This director's cut DVD is the best the film will look in the UK, there is a second disc packed with extras on the making of Battle Royale and a booklet with some intereting bits about the film and its stars. My only negative feeling about this package is that the transfer, like many from Tartan Video, is an NTSC to PAL transfer, which leads to ghosting and can be quite irritating to the more astute viewer, but the quality of the film itself is more than adequate to make up for this small minus. A must see film!