Battle Royale (film)

Battle Royale (or Batoru rowaiaru) is a 2000 film about 42 ninth-graders taken to an island, given random weapons, and forced to kill each other until one survivor remains as part of a government program. To ensure their cooperation, they've been fitted with explosive collars that explode when they break a rule.
 * Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Written by Kenta Fukasaku and Koshun Takami, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami.

Could you kill your best friend? taglines

Shuya Nanahara

 * [to Noriko Nakagawa] I'm weak, I'm useless, but I'll stay by your side; I'll protect you.

Mitsuko Souma

 * What's wrong with killing? Everybody's got their reasons.

Shogo Kawada

 * There's a way out of this game. Kill yourselves together, here, now. If you can't do that, then don't trust anyone... just run.

Teacher Kitano

 * So today's lesson is...you kill each other off until there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules!

Training Video Girl

 * Each weapon is different. Not just guns or knives either! It is random so maybe you will get lucky, maybe not. It eliminates natural advantages. [picks up axe] Oooh. This one is SUPER lucky.

Dialogue

 * Kyouichi Motobuchi: If I survive, may I go home?
 * Teacher Kitano: Sure, but only if everyone else is dead. Mimura?
 * Shinji Mimura: How were we chosen?
 * Kitano: By impartial lottery.
 * Mimura: One more.
 * Kitano: Sure.
 * Mimura: Why are you doing this?
 * Kitano: It's your own damn fault. You guys mock grown-ups. Go ahead and mock us, but don't you forget: life is a game, so fight for survival and find out if you're worth it.


 * [Shogo has just finished bandaging Noriko's leg]
 * Shuya Nanahara: You know a lot about medicine.
 * Shogo Kawada: Well, my father was a doctor.


 * Shogo Kawada: [Noriko wakes up abruptly] You okay?
 * Noriko Nakagawa: I had a dream...
 * Kawada: What dream?
 * Nakagawa: I was alone with Kitano on an empty riverbank.
 * Kawada: Must've been scary.
 * Nakagawa: But Kitano just seemed lonely.
 * Kawada: Hmmm.
 * Nakagawa: Before this, I always just thought of myself as normal. I'd have a normal marriage, age normally, just like my mom... but when this game started, I realized - it's just that I was sheltered.
 * Kawada: Some things are better not to know.


 * Hiroki Sugimura: I've been in love with you for a long, long time...
 * Kayoko Kotohiki: [cries] What am I supposed to do now?
 * Mitsuko Souma: Die.


 * Shogo Kawada: Meeting you guys, I finally solved the riddle of Keiko's smile.
 * Noriko Nakagawa: What's the answer?
 * Kawada: Her parting words - Thank you - and then...
 * Shuya Nanahara: And then? [Kawada drops his cigarette] Kawada!
 * Nakagawa: Kawada!
 * Kawada: And then - I'm glad I found true friends.

Taglines

 * Could you kill your best friend?
 * One Dead. 41 To Go.
 * 42 Students, Three Days, One Survivor, No Rules.
 * Today, I killed my best friend.
 * Have you ever killed your best friend?

About

 * Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins came from a military family. But Battle Royale director Kinji Fukasaku actually survived World War II. He was just a teenager himself when he was put to work in a munitions factory in Japan. "It was bombed, a lot," Hendrix says. "And one of his jobs, at the age of 15, was to take a wheelbarrow around the factory and pick up body parts after bombing raids." The experience left Fukasaku with a lasting abhorrence of war — and a profound sense of betrayal by grownups that persisted into his own adulthood. And it fueled his decision to film Battle Royale, which was both highly controversial and a massive theatrical hit when it was released in Japan, despite a rating that kept young teenagers from seeing it. That irritated the director, says Hendrix. "He gave a very famous statement to the press where he said, 'Kids, if you have the courage, you can sneak in. And I encourage you to do so.'"
 * Hendrix says one of the most important things Battle Royale and The Hunger Games share is the idea of teenagers trapped in a ruined society, coerced by grownups into doing horrible things. Even so, they both make it clear — there's nothing more utopian than a teenager. Even in a dystopia.
 * Grady Hendrix in "'Battle,' 'Games': Cold Brutality A Common Theme" by Nedia Ulaby, All Things Considered, NPR, March 21, 2012

Cast

 * Tatsuya Fujiwara — Shuya Nanahara (Boy #15)
 * Aki Maeda — Noriko Nakagawa (Girl #15)
 * Taro Yamamoto — Shogo Kawada (Boy #5)
 * Chiaki Kuriyama — Takako Chigusa (Girl #13)
 * Kou Shibasaki — Mitsuko Souma (Girl #11)
 * Beat Takeshi — Teacher Kitano