Before there was The Hunger Games and the popular video game genre, the term “battle royale” applied to the popular 2000 film. Director Kinji Fukusaku’s dystopian thriller casts a wide shadow over media these days, and in honor of its 25th birthday in December, it’s coming back to the big screen again.
Lionsgate and Iconic Events are screening the film at select theaters in Japanese with English subtitles and a bonus interview with the film’s screenwriter (and Fukusaku’s son), Kenta, about his late father’s career and the historical context in Japan that informed the film’s screenplay. Like the movie’s bloodsport, these screenings only go for three days: today, October 12; Monday, October 13; and Wednesday, October 15. You can check here to see if a theater is screening it near you.
Based on Koushun Takami’s 1999 novel of the same name, Battle Royale centers on a group of Japanese high school students living under a totalitarian government that’s enacted a yearly game where students fight each other to the death over three days, and anyone who refuses gets their head blown off. At the time, it was controversial enough to get banned or excluded from distribution in some countries, and couldn’t be sold to American distributors for over a decade out of concern for lawsuits. (It eventually did in 2010, albeit as direct-to-video.)
Even so, the film went on to earn critical acclaim and make $30.6 million worldwide, leading several actors to become stars. Fukusaku briefly worked on a sequel before his passing, which was completed by his son Kenta and got a negative reception. The true impact of Battle Royale can be felt throughout media attempting to imitate or replicate it, including The Purge, Deadman Wonderland, Call of Duty: Warzone, and The World Ends With You.
If you’ve never seen Battle Royale before or want to again, now’s a good time to catch a screening and be glad Hollywood’s managed to not remake it.
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