‎Battle Royale (2000) directed by Kinji Fukasaku • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Battle Royale

2000 ‘バトル・ロワイアル’ Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Could you kill your best friend?

In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill each other under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act.

Takeshi Kitano Tsuyako Kinoshita Eri Ishikawa Sayaka Ikeda Tomomi Shimaki Tamaki Mihara Yukari Kanasawa Misao Kato Takayo Mimura Hitomi Hyuga Anna Nagata Kou Shibasaki Satomi Ishii Chiaki Kuriyama Haruka Nomiyama Aki Maeda Satomi Hanamura Sayaka Kamiya Aki Inoue Asami Kanai Mai Sekiguchi Takako Baba Shin Kusaka Ren Matsuzawa Shigehiro Yamaguchi Taro Yamamoto Masanobu Ando Yukihiro Kotani Sousuke Takaoka Show All…

114 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Jamie ★★★★ 43

omfg! such a copy off hunger games but so bad! its gross and all in a stupid langiage! i cant read subtitles and watch at the same time!

plus it doesnt even have any hot boys like peeta or gale in it so why watch? #Team Peeta 4 life!!!!!! #yolo!!!1
Review by Sarah Jane ★★★★ 16

Every boy in this movie looks like he is a character straight from anime. Man, I hate that hairstyle. Then and now.

Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) says she was inspired to write The Hunger Games after the poverty she saw in Iraq during the war. Uh huh.

Is anyone else buying that bullshit?

Still a great movie 14 years later.
Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★★ 25

Going on a school field trip has never fuckin' sucked so fuckin' bad. Sharing a Kodak moment with your friends. Waking up to a what-the-fuckin'-shit-hell-is-fuckin'-going-on nightmare. A fuckin' outrage as Professor Kitano takes over the class. No fuckin' talkin', not even a fuckin' whisper. A necklace that will fuck you up. Watching your best-mate's neck gush. The transfer students with two very different fuckin' agendas. Watch out, Death Note's finest will light you the fuck up with a pot lid. Mitsuko's smile. The way Kawada smokes. Kazuo, zero lines of dialogue and total fuckin' ownage. The boys from Anonymous try their fuckin' best to hack the system. Yummy spaghetti. The greatest fuckin' lunch ever served at a lighthouse. Kawada vs.…
Review by Naughty ★★★★★ 2

Controversial Cult Classic, incredibly original and highly influential film that puts the Hunger Games to shame!

It has more than earned its reputation for its violence and brutality but the real star of the show is the diverse range of emotions and fears (Good and Bad) that are all too human!

Takeshi Kitano added some serious beaucoup depth and flavor to the film!
Review by YI JIAN ★★★★ 13

Run.

When you've already presented the main plot on the table in the first five minutes, and the rest of it are mostly predictable, what do you use to drive your film forward while keeping it interesting?

Testicle mutilation.

Wait. No.

Characters. That's right. Characters. Good ones. The ones with depth. And director Kinji Fukasaku, or rather, author of the original novel -- Koushun Takami, delivers. 43 of 'em! (Including Kitano-sensei.) The hardest part of telling a story about teenagers stabbing, choking and shooting each other is to make the audience care about them. Once that obstacle is crossed, what we have is an emotional, intense, shocking and insane little cult classic.

What makes Battle Royale even more special is…
Review by TajLV ★★★★½

"So today's lesson is: you kill each other off. Battle Royale." ~ Kitano-sensei

Forget "The Hunger Games." That state-choreographed killing competition is like playing tiddlywinks compared to director Kinji Fukasaku's epic bloodfest pitting 9th-grade classmates against one another in Japan's near-future contest for survival. Based on a best-selling novel by Koushun Takami, the film corrals 42 students on a deserted island for three days and has them shoot, knife, bludgeon, bomb, poison and otherwise murder each other till only one emerges as the victor.

Some will commit suicide rather than turn on their friends. Others will get caught in "danger zones" where their necklace monitors explode and take off their heads. Nobody is safe. There is no escape. And should…

Recent reviews

Review by Sean McFadden ★★★★

What a badass and ballsy movie that puts The Hunger Games to shame. Also this takes on a different perspective when you rewatch it some fifteen years later when a lot has changed since your twenties, like parenthood. The introduction and explanation of what's happening becomes much more gut wrenching.
Review by emmmmily ★★★★

tag urself i'm the girl who stabbed a guy in the dick for spreading rumors about her
Review by meiko ★★★★½ 2

"I just didn't want to be a loser any more"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Review by sailordanae ★★★★½

Film #24 of Scavenger Hunt #27
Task #15: An Alternate Cut Of A Film You’ve Previously Seen
Review by gpowerpow ★★★★★

the only class that gives you credit for killing people. easy A
Review by Javier Garcia ★★★★

"Life is a game. So fight for survival and see if you're worth it."
Review by monica ★★★★½

Mitsuko really did all that while on her period.. what a fuckin hero.
Review by riptisci ★★★★½

Generally, films that attempt to create a hostile environment between its characters tend to have a massive fault in the acting or writing that results in unused potential. This movie does the exact opposite.
Every scene in this movie takes every opportunity that it has to be a great movie and goes beyond what would need to be done to claim the throne as the golden standard for any movie attempting a remotely similar storyline.

Usually films that attempt this kind of environment sacrifice storyline to focus on the tension between characters. Battle Royale may do that at points, but every time it is perfectly appropriate.
Every second of this film is masterfully shot and orchestrated with actors perfectly encapsulating the emotion and attitude of each word and action.
I'm a fan.
Review by Dustin ★★★★★

i used to watch this movie almost everyday after school when i was an edgy teenager and i still love it now cus im an edgy adult