# Battle Royale (film)

Battle Royale (or Batoru rowaiaru) is a 2000 film about 42 ninth-graders taken to an island, given random weapons, and forced to kill each other until one survivor remains as part of a government program. To ensure their cooperation, they've been fitted with explosive collars that explode when they break a rule.
    Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Written by Kenta Fukasaku and Koshun Takami, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami.

## Shuya Nanahara

* [to Noriko Nakagawa] I'm weak, I'm useless, but I'll stay by your side; I'll protect you.

## Mitsuko Souma

* What's wrong with killing? Everybody's got their reasons.

## Shogo Kawada

* There's a way out of this game. Kill yourselves together, here, now. If you can't do that, then don't trust anyone... just run.

## Teacher Kitano

* So today's lesson is...you kill each other off until there's only one left. Nothing's against the rules!

## Training Video Girl

* Each weapon is different. Not just guns or knives either! It is random so maybe you will get lucky, maybe not. It eliminates natural advantages. [picks up axe] Oooh. This one is SUPER lucky.

## Dialogue

    Kyouichi Motobuchi: If I survive, may I go home?
    Teacher Kitano: Sure, but only if everyone else is dead. Mimura?
    Shinji Mimura: How were we chosen?
    Kitano: By impartial lottery.
    Mimura: One more.
    Kitano: Sure.
    Mimura: Why are you doing this?
    Kitano: It's your own damn fault. You guys mock grown-ups. Go ahead and mock us, but don't you forget: life is a game, so fight for survival and find out if you're worth it.
    [Shogo has just finished bandaging Noriko's leg]
    Shuya Nanahara: You know a lot about medicine.
    Shogo Kawada: Well, my father was a doctor.
    Shogo Kawada: [Noriko wakes up abruptly] You okay?
    Noriko Nakagawa: I had a dream...
    Kawada: What dream?
    Nakagawa: I was alone with Kitano on an empty riverbank.
    Kawada: Must've been scary.
    Nakagawa: But Kitano just seemed lonely.
    Kawada: Hmmm.
    Nakagawa: Before this, I always just thought of myself as normal. I'd have a normal marriage, age normally, just like my mom... but when this game started, I realized - it's just that I was sheltered.
    Kawada: Some things are better not to know.
    Hiroki Sugimura: I've been in love with you for a long, long time...
    Kayoko Kotohiki: [cries] What am I supposed to do now?
    Mitsuko Souma: Die.
    Shogo Kawada: Meeting you guys, I finally solved the riddle of Keiko's smile.
    Noriko Nakagawa: What's the answer?
    Kawada: Her parting words - Thank you - and then...
    Shuya Nanahara: And then? [Kawada drops his cigarette] Kawada!
    Nakagawa: Kawada!
    Kawada: And then - I'm glad I found true friends.

## Taglines

* Could you kill your best friend?
* One Dead. 41 To Go.
* 42 Students, Three Days, One Survivor, No Rules.
* Today, I killed my best friend.
* Have you ever killed your best friend?

### About Battle Royale (film)

* Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins came from a military family. But Battle Royale director Kinji Fukasaku actually survived World War II. He was just a teenager himself when he was put to work in a munitions factory in Japan. "It was bombed, a lot," Hendrix says. "And one of his jobs, at the age of 15, was to take a wheelbarrow around the factory and pick up body parts after bombing raids." The experience left Fukasaku with a lasting abhorrence of war — and a profound sense of betrayal by grownups that persisted into his own adulthood. And it fueled his decision to film Battle Royale, which was both highly controversial and a massive theatrical hit when it was released in Japan, despite a rating that kept young teenagers from seeing it. That irritated the director, says Hendrix. "He gave a very famous statement to the press where he said, 'Kids, if you have the courage, you can sneak in. And I encourage you to do so.'"
* Hendrix says one of the most important things Battle Royale and The Hunger Games share is the idea of teenagers trapped in a ruined society, coerced by grownups into doing horrible things. Even so, they both make it clear — there's nothing more utopian than a teenager. Even in a dystopia.
   * Grady Hendrix in "'Battle,' 'Games': Cold Brutality A Common Theme" by Nedia Ulaby, All Things Considered, NPR, March 21, 2012

## Cast

* Tatsuya Fujiwara — Shuya Nanahara (Boy #15)
* Aki Maeda — Noriko Nakagawa (Girl #15)
* Taro Yamamoto — Shogo Kawada (Boy #5)
* Chiaki Kuriyama — Takako Chigusa (Girl #13)
* Kou Shibasaki — Mitsuko Souma (Girl #11)
* Beat Takeshi — Teacher Kitano

## External links

* Battle Royale quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* Battle Royale at Rotten Tomatoes