You are a school kid, put on a bus with your classmates for a school trip. The bus enters a tunnel. Your throat stings as an acrid gas overwhelms you. You wake up in a barracks, with your terrified classmates, being screamed at by Beat Takashi. Fight or Die is the rule, and you are no longer a school kid – you are either a killer or a corpse.

"Some will find the explicit violence of this movie repulsive - or plain boring. But this is a film put together with remarkable confidence and flair. Its steely candour, and weird, passionate urgency make it compelling. - THE GUARDIAN

ABOUT

Based on the novel by Takami Koshun, Battle Royale is a thought-provoking tale of 'what if…?'. The film is set in a near-future Japan where the government's concerns about juvenile delinquency and the youth's disregard for discipline and order have paved the way for extreme measures: the methodical extermination of teenage children. The method: groups of high school children are systematically kidnapped and brought to a deserted island. They are given weapons and food and an order: to go out and kill each other. The last one standing is allowed back into society.

Frying pans and TV

Entire classes of teens are sent to an island to kill each other with randomly assigned weapons, and all on TV! Some are lucky, one even gets a crossbow. Another gets a frying pan. But as the kids quickly learn, your instinct for survival is much more potent than any firearm or kitchenware – and the kids adapt in some surprising ways...

Kinji Fukasaku takes a satirical swipe at Japan’s then-growing obsession with reality television, and makes a serious point about the intergenerational gap in Japanese culture. Of course, it’s all about the kids really, and the mostly young cast acquit themselves brilliantly. Watching their terror turn to determination is fascinating, and the leads in particular give excellent performances as the tension is really ramped up.

Special mention has to be made of Takeshi Kitano’s cameo in this film. Like a Japanese R Lee Ermey, his allegedly improvised screams of abuse really let this fine actor / director take a break from his usually impassive style, and it’s a joy to watch.

Pray you don’t get signed up for this game, ‘cos there’s only room for one winner, and the competition is deadly.

REVIEWS

"This is a heart-stopping action film, teaching us the worthy lessons of discipline, teamwork, and determination, but wrapping them up in a deliberately provocative, shockingly violent package." - BBC

"It's a futuristic nightmare; it's a satirical vision of Japan's fear and horror of its recalcitrant, disorderly younger generation; it's a pulp-sploitation shocker with guns, knives, blood and kinky school uniforms. But what it is most of all is violent: very, very violent, the kind of violence which is not ironised in the manner we have become accustomed to in the past 10 years, but presented in an eerily formal melodrama complete with stately, Kubrickian passages of pop classics on the soundtrack." - THE GUARDIAN