Battle Royale
10-12-01, 02:17 PM
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Can anyone else field this question. I'm way to sleepy to make sense right now. If nobody post by tomorrow I'll do it. :yawn: I wish there was a sleepy smile.
10-12-01, 05:28 PM
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Oh don't bother. I am getting critizied for being lazy.(which I would but put up an arguement to but I too tired to do that)
Anyway, someone suggested this IMDB thingamagigy
Anyway, someone suggested this IMDB thingamagigy
10-12-01, 06:14 PM
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i haven't seen it, but judging by the trailer i'd say it's kinda like a cross between The Running Man and Escape from Absolom (Ray Liotta b-movie). a school class is taken to an island where they have to kill eachother. they all get explosive necklaces, and the only way to survive is to kill everyone else as the last one alive gets to live.. but there's a time limit as well, and if there are more than one alive when that time comes the necklaces will explode.
10-12-01, 07:10 PM
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Hi sorry about the late reply 
I ordered my copy from www.movietyme.com for £10.99, still waiting for my copy so I will post my verdict later
I ordered my copy from www.movietyme.com for £10.99, still waiting for my copy so I will post my verdict later
10-12-01, 09:23 PM
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i haven't seen it, but judging by the trailer i'd say it's kinda like a cross between The Running Man and Escape from Absolom (Ray Liotta b-movie). a school class is taken to an island where they have to kill eachother. they all get explosive necklaces, and the only way to survive is to kill everyone else as the last one alive gets to live.. but there's a time limit as well, and if there are more than one alive when that time comes the necklaces will explode.
10-13-01, 02:45 PM
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It is No Escape. Battle Royale is similar to it, but I haven't seen The Running Man, so I don't know on that one. I'd also add that it is a hell of a lot more sadistic, and there is a lot of very dark comedy to it. It's what my idea of an ideal horror movie is. Not a bunch of idiots going "What was that noise?" [Hack]. It's very realistic as far as human emotion / reactions. A big 
all around. I don't have a region free player, but movies like this are a good reason to get one. Right now though I'll just keep my fingers crossed on a region free dvd (hopefully an SE) of this movie.
all around. I don't have a region free player, but movies like this are a good reason to get one. Right now though I'll just keep my fingers crossed on a region free dvd (hopefully an SE) of this movie.
10-13-01, 07:29 PM
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Escape from Absolom was the title when i saw it, on the video cover and in the opening credits. i'm aware of that they changed the title later on but that sounds even more unknown and unheard of.
Jsph, i'd say Battle Royale is alot like The Running Man. they're both about people having to survive as a part of a game show.. although they have to kill eachother in Battle Royale, while they have "hunters" in The Running Man.
Jsph, i'd say Battle Royale is alot like The Running Man. they're both about people having to survive as a part of a game show.. although they have to kill eachother in Battle Royale, while they have "hunters" in The Running Man.
10-14-01, 08:25 AM
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Thanks Grizzly, I'll have to try and see The Running Man.
Zoo, Region Coding = A provision that players will accept DVD discs that are authored and encoded for use in one of six designated world regions. This technique was developed to enable Motion Picture companies to release movies at different times in different regions. Sometimes movie companies are unwilling to release a movie (Battle Royale) in the states. So a Region Free player allows you to bypass that. i.e. You buy the Region 3 copy through import and using a Region Free player, you are able to watch the movie without buying a plane ticket to Japan.
Zoo, Region Coding = A provision that players will accept DVD discs that are authored and encoded for use in one of six designated world regions. This technique was developed to enable Motion Picture companies to release movies at different times in different regions. Sometimes movie companies are unwilling to release a movie (Battle Royale) in the states. So a Region Free player allows you to bypass that. i.e. You buy the Region 3 copy through import and using a Region Free player, you are able to watch the movie without buying a plane ticket to Japan.
10-22-01, 04:20 AM
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Ok I'm confused.
I hear that the Japanese version of BR is the best, but that it has no english subtitles which I have to have. Japan is region 2.
The HK version is good but not as good as the Japanese version and it is region 3.
So what is this?? - http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI...tem=1475214526
It is an all region "true japanese" version and has english subs.
It doesn't appear to be a boot but I'd like to be sure. Does anybody have this version? Where does it come from?
Thanks.
I hear that the Japanese version of BR is the best, but that it has no english subtitles which I have to have. Japan is region 2.
The HK version is good but not as good as the Japanese version and it is region 3.
So what is this?? - http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI...tem=1475214526
It is an all region "true japanese" version and has english subs.
It doesn't appear to be a boot but I'd like to be sure. Does anybody have this version? Where does it come from?
Thanks.
10-22-01, 10:23 AM
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I am going to e-mail the seller to get more info
I will post anything that is relevent.
I also read that the Japanese version had the best extras but no English subtitles, cant wait to get my hands on this excellent film.
Saw the Special Edition of it which has 7 mins of extra footage, at the recent Belfast Film Festival.
Cheers
I will post anything that is relevent.
I also read that the Japanese version had the best extras but no English subtitles, cant wait to get my hands on this excellent film.
Saw the Special Edition of it which has 7 mins of extra footage, at the recent Belfast Film Festival.
Cheers
10-22-01, 10:52 PM
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10-23-01, 08:31 AM
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Sinbad, what was shown in the new cut of the film????
From what I understand the first original theatrical cut which is the dvd out now was made later into an extended cut. 8 more minutes are added in the special edition and total running time now is 121 minutes. More blood/sound effects are even more powerful. This version features several new scenes.
The underlying subconscious theme in this story is an indictment of Japan's educational system as well as teen violence. The director succeeded in bringing it to the attention of Japan's government in that they were forced to address the problem at least. This movie rocks by the way. The dvds that are all code on ebay are bootlegs of the NTSC (usa tv system) region 3(usa is region 1 only) dvd. This version is no better than the vcd version (still watchable) by the same company, but the dts track is nice. The version that everyone wants is the Japanese Region 2 (This is the Europe PAL system- you need a player or tv able to convert/play systems. I could be wrong in that some Japanese dvds are NTSC) This version is a sharp anamorphic version and has some nice extras but no English subtitles. The all code version above is different from the other ebay versions (they don't include dts)This one has dts and claims a true and brand new version with english subs. What I want to know is if the source for this version (bootleg or not) is the sharp anamorphic or watchable vcd'ish letterbox picture.
From what I understand the first original theatrical cut which is the dvd out now was made later into an extended cut. 8 more minutes are added in the special edition and total running time now is 121 minutes. More blood/sound effects are even more powerful. This version features several new scenes.
The underlying subconscious theme in this story is an indictment of Japan's educational system as well as teen violence. The director succeeded in bringing it to the attention of Japan's government in that they were forced to address the problem at least. This movie rocks by the way. The dvds that are all code on ebay are bootlegs of the NTSC (usa tv system) region 3(usa is region 1 only) dvd. This version is no better than the vcd version (still watchable) by the same company, but the dts track is nice. The version that everyone wants is the Japanese Region 2 (This is the Europe PAL system- you need a player or tv able to convert/play systems. I could be wrong in that some Japanese dvds are NTSC) This version is a sharp anamorphic version and has some nice extras but no English subtitles. The all code version above is different from the other ebay versions (they don't include dts)This one has dts and claims a true and brand new version with english subs. What I want to know is if the source for this version (bootleg or not) is the sharp anamorphic or watchable vcd'ish letterbox picture.
Last edited by Hannibal; 10-23-01 at 10:17 AM.
09-03-02, 07:08 PM
#19
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I liked it. I also understand there was no way in hell that it could've been released in the United States.
I felt odd laughing at certain parts but the dark humor made it more interesting.
It's pretty graphic and the stunts look real because they're easily achievable stunts and not people jumping from helicoptors onto a moving bus or anything.
I felt odd laughing at certain parts but the dark humor made it more interesting.
It's pretty graphic and the stunts look real because they're easily achievable stunts and not people jumping from helicoptors onto a moving bus or anything.
09-03-02, 07:55 PM
#20
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The reason it was never released in the States is because the Japanese studio is asking too much for the rights, appearently around $1 million.
Tartan in the UK released a NTSC, region free DVD version of the movie, appearently using the same transfer as the Japanese disc. It's anamorphic, but despite being advertized as for progressive players, it's an interlaced transfer.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...qid=1031100614
A "Special Version" cut of the film was made later and has made it onto Japanese DVD. Tartan is releasing a PAL version of that cut. However, I found a listing for a Korean DVD as well:
http://www.krdvd.com/details.php?id=228
I'm don't know if it's the "SV" cut or not.
For nearly all info on Battle Royale, go to the following:
http://www.battleroyaleonline.com/
Tartan in the UK released a NTSC, region free DVD version of the movie, appearently using the same transfer as the Japanese disc. It's anamorphic, but despite being advertized as for progressive players, it's an interlaced transfer.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...qid=1031100614
A "Special Version" cut of the film was made later and has made it onto Japanese DVD. Tartan is releasing a PAL version of that cut. However, I found a listing for a Korean DVD as well:
http://www.krdvd.com/details.php?id=228
I'm don't know if it's the "SV" cut or not.
For nearly all info on Battle Royale, go to the following:
http://www.battleroyaleonline.com/
Last edited by Jay G.; 09-03-02 at 08:11 PM.
02-06-03, 11:39 PM
#23
DVD Talk Special Edition
from the Economist magazine
WATCHING a film made by Kinji Fukasaku, you wonder why a people so courteous, so apparently peaceable as the Japanese support a popular culture that is notable for its depictions of cruelty. It is not only in film that cruelty triumphs in Japan. You may be sitting in a train in the Tokyo metro next to a pleasant young couple who are sharing a book of drawings. Out of curiosity, you take a peep at the page that has their attention. It is of a young woman being raped.
The couple are not embarrassed. Indeed, being polite Japanese, they offer the westerner a closer look. The book is of a genre known as manga, cartoon storybooks that are published weekly and sell by the million. Then there are the game shows, watched on television by audiences even larger than those for films and manga books, and devised to expose their willing participants to humiliation bordering on sadism.
Mr Fukasaku's contribution to Japan's carnival of cruelty was a series of extraordinary films made over a period of 40 years. In Japan many regarded him as its finest director and his films were consistently successful, both at the box-office and with the critics. But they did not travel well. They had big audiences in South Korea and Hong Kong. In the United States Quentin Tarantino (“Reservoir Dogs”) was an enthusiast. But in most western countries audiences with a taste for Japanese films generally tended to prefer the work of the more lyrical Akira Kurosawa (“The Seven Samurai”).
There does seem to be a line drawn between what is publicly acceptable in Japan and in Europe. Hollywood morality seeks to soften its film-makers' more brutish ideas with an ending that at least sends away an audience comforted that the wicked have been punished. “Poor humanity,” wrote Alphonse Daudet, “you shouldn't tell it everything.” Mr Fukasaku, though, reckoned that violence in popular entertainment helped to keep Japan peaceful. It was a form of release. Some commentators say that Japanese men anyway demand a robust culture, and women feel unable to object. These are reasoned opinions, if contentious ones.
With the gangsters
During the second world war, when Kinji Fukasaku was in his early teens, he worked in a munitions factory that was bombed day after day. “I had to clean up the corpses,” he said. After the war he studied cinema at Nihon University in Tokyo and was taken on as an apprentice by Toei, a film company. Under the American occupation, no military films could be made. Toei's preference was for historical costume dramas. Mr Fukasaku sought more contemporary stories and became interested in the yakuza, gangsters who regarded themselves as upholders of traditional Japanese virtues as they pursued their careers of graft, blackmail and vice. In a series of films Mr Fukasaku sought to enter the world of the gangster. He claimed, reasonably, that the films had a social purpose, showing that there was not much virtue in the yakuza, who were driven by greed. But the image that remained in the minds of the audience as the lights came on was more likely to be of gangsters atoning for bungled jobs by chopping off their little fingers. Grisly violence had become Mr Fukasaku's speciality. He made films with other themes, among them space travel. He directed the Japanese scenes in “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, a film jointly made with an American company about the attack on Pearl Harbour. He did some costume dramas, which were praised for their accuracy. But violence called again.
In “Battle Royale”, his 61st and final film, a group of students is taken to an island. Each student is given a weapon and told to kill each other. Mr Fukasaku said it was about survival. It echoed his experience as a wartime teenager: “Even though we were friends working together, the only thing we would be thinking of was self-preservation. We would try to get behind each other or beneath dead bodies to avoid the bombs.” But he said the film was also about the despair felt by the children of parents who had lost confidence in themselves as a result of Japan's long recession. “I couldn't give the film a happy ending, because Japanese don't feel hope anymore. It's a fairy tale, but a dark one.”
For some in authority Mr Fukasaku had gone too far. Here were all these delightful young people told to kill or be killed. There was a debate about the film in parliament and it was barred to anyone under 15, an unusual act of censorship in Japan. Some said that what really upset the authorities was that the film seemed to depict Japan's fiercely competitive educational system. Others said it was an unfair attack on game shows: the students were selected by lottery, and the killing had become a game. No one made too much of the obvious: that it would encourage teenage crime.
This may be because Japan seems to be the safest of the rich countries. If you believe the statistics, the ratio of its reported crimes to the population is well below that of the United States and Britain, even allowing for a rise in crime during the long recession. Japanese police naturally take the credit. So do the yakuza, for keeping their competitors under control. And to keep the contest fair, don't forget Kinji Fukasaku, for allowing violence its outlet.
WATCHING a film made by Kinji Fukasaku, you wonder why a people so courteous, so apparently peaceable as the Japanese support a popular culture that is notable for its depictions of cruelty. It is not only in film that cruelty triumphs in Japan. You may be sitting in a train in the Tokyo metro next to a pleasant young couple who are sharing a book of drawings. Out of curiosity, you take a peep at the page that has their attention. It is of a young woman being raped.
The couple are not embarrassed. Indeed, being polite Japanese, they offer the westerner a closer look. The book is of a genre known as manga, cartoon storybooks that are published weekly and sell by the million. Then there are the game shows, watched on television by audiences even larger than those for films and manga books, and devised to expose their willing participants to humiliation bordering on sadism.
Mr Fukasaku's contribution to Japan's carnival of cruelty was a series of extraordinary films made over a period of 40 years. In Japan many regarded him as its finest director and his films were consistently successful, both at the box-office and with the critics. But they did not travel well. They had big audiences in South Korea and Hong Kong. In the United States Quentin Tarantino (“Reservoir Dogs”) was an enthusiast. But in most western countries audiences with a taste for Japanese films generally tended to prefer the work of the more lyrical Akira Kurosawa (“The Seven Samurai”).
There does seem to be a line drawn between what is publicly acceptable in Japan and in Europe. Hollywood morality seeks to soften its film-makers' more brutish ideas with an ending that at least sends away an audience comforted that the wicked have been punished. “Poor humanity,” wrote Alphonse Daudet, “you shouldn't tell it everything.” Mr Fukasaku, though, reckoned that violence in popular entertainment helped to keep Japan peaceful. It was a form of release. Some commentators say that Japanese men anyway demand a robust culture, and women feel unable to object. These are reasoned opinions, if contentious ones.
With the gangsters
During the second world war, when Kinji Fukasaku was in his early teens, he worked in a munitions factory that was bombed day after day. “I had to clean up the corpses,” he said. After the war he studied cinema at Nihon University in Tokyo and was taken on as an apprentice by Toei, a film company. Under the American occupation, no military films could be made. Toei's preference was for historical costume dramas. Mr Fukasaku sought more contemporary stories and became interested in the yakuza, gangsters who regarded themselves as upholders of traditional Japanese virtues as they pursued their careers of graft, blackmail and vice. In a series of films Mr Fukasaku sought to enter the world of the gangster. He claimed, reasonably, that the films had a social purpose, showing that there was not much virtue in the yakuza, who were driven by greed. But the image that remained in the minds of the audience as the lights came on was more likely to be of gangsters atoning for bungled jobs by chopping off their little fingers. Grisly violence had become Mr Fukasaku's speciality. He made films with other themes, among them space travel. He directed the Japanese scenes in “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, a film jointly made with an American company about the attack on Pearl Harbour. He did some costume dramas, which were praised for their accuracy. But violence called again.
In “Battle Royale”, his 61st and final film, a group of students is taken to an island. Each student is given a weapon and told to kill each other. Mr Fukasaku said it was about survival. It echoed his experience as a wartime teenager: “Even though we were friends working together, the only thing we would be thinking of was self-preservation. We would try to get behind each other or beneath dead bodies to avoid the bombs.” But he said the film was also about the despair felt by the children of parents who had lost confidence in themselves as a result of Japan's long recession. “I couldn't give the film a happy ending, because Japanese don't feel hope anymore. It's a fairy tale, but a dark one.”
For some in authority Mr Fukasaku had gone too far. Here were all these delightful young people told to kill or be killed. There was a debate about the film in parliament and it was barred to anyone under 15, an unusual act of censorship in Japan. Some said that what really upset the authorities was that the film seemed to depict Japan's fiercely competitive educational system. Others said it was an unfair attack on game shows: the students were selected by lottery, and the killing had become a game. No one made too much of the obvious: that it would encourage teenage crime.
This may be because Japan seems to be the safest of the rich countries. If you believe the statistics, the ratio of its reported crimes to the population is well below that of the United States and Britain, even allowing for a rise in crime during the long recession. Japanese police naturally take the credit. So do the yakuza, for keeping their competitors under control. And to keep the contest fair, don't forget Kinji Fukasaku, for allowing violence its outlet.
