As a fan of The Hunger Games books and to an extent the film franchise, Battle Royale blows it out of the water. Released nearly a decade before the book series, I’m not sure if Suzanne Collins ever watched this film or read the book it’s based off of, but the similarities are vast.
For starters, I am and always will be a sucker for dystopian future films. To my knowledge this is probably the earliest battle royale genre film or property that I have seen. The concept is so crazy and obviously a satire, but as a film for entertainment purposes it is awesome. I read the background of it and how it was banned in multiple countries, not even being available in the USA until the 2010s which makes sense as to why it is dubbed in English on Prime Video with no option for Japanese language.
While corny and over the top at times with some silly choreography and cheesiness, it is a gory film with some brutal killing of children. Between its limited viewing until the last decade and this kind of gore, it is easy to understand why this is a cult classic.
If you are a fan of The Hunger Games, I’d imagine you’d be a huge fan of this. It doesn’t include the same theatrics with the reaping and then the sponsors and interviews with Stanley Tucci like the popular YA series, but the general plot remains the same. A tyrannical government pits high school-aged kids against each other in a battle to the death. Instead of a cornucopia, each kid is given a survival pack and after every death it is announced via loudspeaker instead of a cannon shot and lights in the sky. Like in Catching Fire, different zones become dangerous at a certain time of day.
All in all, it is a great dystopian action story. I love this even more than The Hunger Games. I highly recommend to anyone that’s a fan of this genre.
As a fan of The Hunger Games books and to an extent the film franchise, Battle Royale blows it out of the water. Released nearly a decade before the book series, I’m not sure if Suzanne Collins ever watched this film or read the book it’s based off of, but the similarities are vast.
For starters, I am and always will be a sucker for dystopian future films. To my knowledge this is probably the earliest battle royale genre film or property that I have seen. The concept is so crazy and obviously a satire, but as a film for entertainment purposes it is awesome. I read the background of it and how it was banned in multiple countries, not even being available in the USA until the 2010s which makes sense as to why it is dubbed in English on Prime Video with no option for Japanese language.
While corny and over the top at times with some silly choreography and cheesiness, it is a gory film with some brutal killing of children. Between its limited viewing until the last decade and this kind of gore, it is easy to understand why this is a cult classic.
If you are a fan of The Hunger Games, I’d imagine you’d be a huge fan of this. It doesn’t include the same theatrics with the reaping and then the sponsors and interviews with Stanley Tucci like the popular YA series, but the general plot remains the same. A tyrannical government pits high school-aged kids against each other in a battle to the death. Instead of a cornucopia, each kid is given a survival pack and after every death it is announced via loudspeaker instead of a cannon shot and lights in the sky. Like in Catching Fire, different zones become dangerous at a certain time of day.
All in all, it is a great dystopian action story. I love this even more than The Hunger Games. I highly recommend to anyone that’s a fan of this genre.
