Battle Royale (2000)

“American fans of The Hunger Games may not embrace – or even be permitted to see – Battle Royale, which is too bad. It is in many ways a better movie and in any case a fascinating companion, drawn from a parallel cultural universe. It is a lot uglier and also, perversely, a lot more fun.” — A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“[Fukasaku’s] genius is finding the overlap between teenage dreams and nightmares, between the intensity of first love and the terror of extinction.” — Eric Hynes, The Village Voice

SYNOPSIS

After a career of yakuza classics and scathing political critiques, seventy-year-old Kinji Fukasaku delivered his most widely known work: a legendary proto-Hunger Games whose American breakthrough was largely thwarted in the wake of Columbine, consigning it to years of video-store lore and DVDs of dubious provenance. Set in a near-future Japan where a class of teenagers is forced by the government to fight to the death on a remote island, Battle Royale combines savage social satire, explosive action, and genuine pathos into one of the defining cult sensations of the new millennium. More than two decades later, its influence remains impossible to ignore, and its mixture of political fury, emotional complexity, and visceral excitement has only grown more resonant with age.

Presented in Japanese w/ English subtitles.