What exactly was the point of the requiems? They didn’t really seem to add anything on to the film.
And according to imdb, "When the movie was first released in Japan, it was classified as R-15, meaning that noone under the age of 15 could see it. However, director Kinji Fukasaku went back and edited some of the more violent scenes along with filming some new ones to create a “Special Version” which people under the age of 15 can see.
8 minutes were added to the ‘Special Version’ to bring the running time to 121 mins. Around 100 edits were made to the movie including consideringly amping up the sound during the violent scenes. Among the scenes added to the Special Version were: a flashback to a basketball match that Shuya and Mimura played in school; an extended speech given by Kitano to the students; after Mimura hacks the computer system, Kitano shuts down the power to the monitors and acts very ambivalent to it; an alternate ‘requiem’ ending."
So, the theatrical version of BR is apparently even more violent than the one most of us has seen. Anybody know the exact differences and if that version is available?
Battle Royale is one of my favorite movies in a long time, it has an excellent use of music. It makes you experience different emotions very well. It’s terrifying, hilarious, touching, and damn exciting. The cinematography of the island is gorgeous.
The original novel was great too. The manga is very good, there’s a lot of graphic sexual stuff though.
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So, the theatrical version of BR is apparently even more violent than the one most of us has seen. Anybody know the exact differences and if that version is available?
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Hi all,
i have made some research about the movie and it appears that Battle Royale has been officially “banned” from 16 countries and we are talking about majors ones like USA.
However, i live in Canada and i could purchase a 4-Disks Region-0 super Box Set over Ebay, from a Chinese Import Seller, kick ass. If i add, the 18$ shipping (in 4days!), i’ve paid this baby 50$US.
The Box look like this one:
Except you can’t really see the nice green box who contains the two BR’S and a nice group pic of every one involved in the productions. The Image/Sound Quality is great especially if
you have the whole Home Theather kit, which i don’t at the moment, but the standard sound is perfect anyway.
What all comes in the set?
[quote]What all comes in the set?[/quote]
-Battle Royale 1 (The Movie+ A Bonus Disc Full of Extras)
-Battle Royale 2 (The Movie+ Bonus Disc)
-A Pic Showing every actors in the movie together, like the
pic at the beginning of BR 1.
Sure, at first, i thought i had kind of nothing, but just look at the extras on the two bonus disc. There are major actor’s interviews, auditions recordings, soundtrack recording footage, a report on how the movie was received in Japan, another featurette showing QT praising the movie 8)…however, all those goodies are in japanese and doesn’t come with subtitles. Anyway, it’s a not a shock, as any good “imports” collector knows it, “imports” rarely comes with many subtitles for the extras.
Can you buy the BR disc with the bonus disc without having to buy the box set?
[quote]Can you buy the BR disc with the bonus disc without having to buy the box set?[/quote]
i bought a 2 disc collection of Battle Royale 1 from and independent seller on Amazon.com. the second disc had a shitload of extras, but no subtitles. sooooo it’s pretty much useless.  
and just so you know, it was only about $15
Battle Royale has to be the worst movie ever, really. Wow.
"Oh no, insert Japanese name here I think I’m going to die! What shall I do?"
To which they reply, “Damn. Don’t die, this island is so terrible, and I am very sad. It’s unfair.”
The dialogue is completely wooden and on the nose, the acting is terrible, the plot is retarded, and the direction sucks
I don’t know why people think Kinji Fukasaku is a great director. He is the definition of over-rated.
Worst movie ever? Damn you’re harsh.
I found Battle Royale to be a great movie which vividly potrayed how different people would act in extreme situations. How far would you go in order to survive? How far would you trust a friend? These are two themes which came out brilliantly during the movie IMHO.
I would somehow agree about the dialogue, but in all fairness, have you ever seen a Japenese movie whose English subtitles didn’t sound corny at all? Cause I can’t think of any at the moment.
Something which I also particularly enjoyed in the movie was the black humor. In particular that kid in the begiinning who had an axe in the middle of his head and said something like “Am I hurt?”. That shit cracked me up. Or when Kitano rises up from the floor to answer the phone in the end, that’s priceless. 
[quote]I found Battle Royale to be a great movie which vividly potrayed how different people would act in extreme situations. How far would you go in order to survive? How far would you trust a friend? These are two themes which came out brilliantly during the movie IMHO.[/quote]
if you liked how the movie explored trust and loyalty, READ THE BOOK.
i liked the book so much better than the movie. i read the book first and the first time i saw the movie i was very dissapointed. the book had time to develope more characters to show different alliances as well as show how different people react to the extremity of the situation that they find themselves. i REALLY liked the book, but the movie was just so-so.
READ THE BOOK!
Obviously the book will have more freedom to expand on character development because it is never limited by the time factor. That is the case in EVERY book-to-movie adaptation. But I think the movie gave a good potrayal of the aforementioned themes in the limited time it had. The food poisoning scene is a classic. How that scene started from a group of students sticking together in order to survive and transformed itself into a bloodshed battle where everyone became suspicious of the other in a matter of seconds was absolutely riveting.
However, I’ve been interested in buying the BR book for quite a while now. I think I’ll just go on and buy it soon enough.
The movie is awesome, but it’s so tongue in cheek and fast paced that you really don’t have time to care much for all of the characters. In the movie version of BR, you actually root on Kiriyama and scream “hell yeah!” when one of the kids gets killed (except for maybe the 3 or 4 that you are able to sympathize with). But the book is much more indepth and you really don’t want to see anyone get killed at all. The book spends several pages on each of the characters and you begin to really see what is going on. Now I think the movie worked fine the way it was, because it would have been way too depressing if there was a huge backstory on each of the kids and everything was somber instead of somewhat humorous. The movie does get pretty serious near the end, but I think it’s perfect the way it is. I’m a lazy bastard and I haven’t picked up the book since school ended, but I did get about halfway through it so far.
My life was changed by Battle Royale I was used to movies by people like Miike,Kitano,Sejun Sezuki,and the guy who did Versus. Kinji Fukasaku is a great filmaker. His son is as talented as his father. He has also done great Yakuza movies like Battles without Honor and Humanity and Graveyard of Honor(check out Miike’s remake). I discovered by him they were not the end of Cinema. I am thankfull I got to say that.
I actually liked the sequal more. It was more like one of John Woo or Sam Peckinpah’s movies with the themes of honor,death,and redemption.
On a unrelated note I found out on the news a 11 year old kid in Japan slit another girl’s neck with box cutters. She said she was a fan of Battle Royale and a video game based on it(I want to play it. Which I hope fills in the gap between Battle Royale 1 and 2. Which was only partly explained in flashbacks.). Part of a new thing in Japan called Killing Rage. It is explained as a normal kid who just in a suddden fit of rage out of the ordinary kills innocent people. Several are happening right now. In my opinion this is just a excuse for a socipath.
:’( Bexi is in tears :’(
I heard that this was QT’s favourite film, so thought I’d check it out.
It had me screaming, it was way too violent, it should be banned. I had to turn it off and put the dvd in the freezer. I’ll be having nightmares for weeks and weeks :’( .
Bexi, I´m sorry that you didn´t like, but it is a very good made movie!
One of the best in its kind of movie.
Believe me, there is no reason to ban it. It is okay, that you didn´t like it, but to say it must be banned is an other thing.
Every adult person must have the right to make his own decision about it. So he must be able to buy it.
And the taste of people changes, maybe in some years you will like it and them you will appriciate it.
You need to find a way to some genres.
That is imporant to understand the quality.
Like Ichi. Many people think that it is only violent. For me it is a masterpiece, other people don´t like it (I think our admin is one of them). I not only see the violence, but the way it is filmed.
The same goes for BR. It is for this kind of movie a very good made film.
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hahahaha way too violent?? what did you expect, elmo in grouchland part 2? if you can stomach a tarantino film, i dont see why you cant appreciate the art of this one[/quote]
please respect the fact that not everyone is like you and people sometimes dont like some kind of violence. everybody has his own taste
:’( I DID’NT KNOW WHAT IT WAS ABOUT! :’(
If I’d known that it was violent then I would’nt of watched it. Whoever wrote the film is absolutely sick. My friend told me that it was ‘the japanese lord of the flies’, well I like Lord of the flies and I don’t recall extreme violence in Lord of the flies. I’ll never get over that film! I’m truamatized for life.
:’(
[quote] :’(  I DID’NT KNOW WHAT IT WAS ABOUT!  :’(
If I’d known that it was violent then I would’nt of watched it. Whoever wrote the film is absolutely sick. My friend told me that it was ‘the japanese lord of the flies’, well I like Lord of the flies and I don’t recall extreme violence in Lord of the flies. I’ll never get over that film! I’m truamatized for life.
:’([/quote]
Ermmm..... Why didn't you stop watching it when the violent parts came on??
this is a free world everyone can watch a movie the way he likes to.
Just seen BR for the second time and liked it even more then the first time!
8.5/10
I went in with near-zero expectations, I just knew the story, so that might have helped
I basicely watched cause Chiacki was in it