Battle Royale 2: Requiem (2003) [Film Review]

Battle Royale 2: Requiem; or, Extreme Measures

      You may be lonely, but it's time to stop being afraid. To all the abandoned children on earth, Let's rise up together and fight together!

Continuing my adventure with Battle Royale (2000), this week, I take a look at the controversial sequel called Battle Royale: Requiem. Arguably, this movie has just as many haters as admirers. The story was penned single-handedly by Kenta Fukasaku, without any reliance on Koshun Takami’s source material. The end result is, in my opinion, a movie that struggles to distance itself from the father picture while inevitably repeating the tropes which made the original so successful. This is my review of Battle Royale 2: Requiem.

Release Info

Directed by: Kenta Fukasaku, Kinji Fukasaku Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Shugo Oshinari, Ai Maeda, Anna Sakai

Language: Japanese Original Title: バトル・ロワイアルII 鎮魂歌 Runtime: 133 min

Synopsis

Three years after the events from the previous film, we see Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) as the leader of the terrorist organisation called Wild Seven. The terrorists declared war against oppressive governments and adults in general. Teenagers from Shikanotoride Junior High School are abducted by Japanese authorities and their teacher (Riki Takeuchi) forces them to participate in a new Battle Royale game. This time, the ultimate goal is to hunt down and kill Nanahara Shuya. They are sent on a deserted island and, after suffering heavy losses, they eventually face the elusive survivor of the previous Battle Royale.

More Battle Less Royale

After the enormous success of Battle Royale in 2000, Toei commissioned a sequel with Kinji Fukasaku returning in the directorial chair. However, the director’s untimely passing at the beginning of the production resulted in Kenta Fukasaku, the director’s son and screenwriter of both Battle Royale films, taking over the project.

The primary disadvantage of Battle Royale 2 are overdone action set pieces. At times, it seems as the movie forgets that it is Battle Royale 2 and turns into Saving Private Ryan 2. Way too much bombastic action and blood (obvious attempt at pleasing horror fans) really put you off from the viewing experience.

In an attempt to become a meaningful story, the script contains not only strong anti-American sentiments, but also hammers down leftist ideology. This is especially visible in the scene when Shuya enumerates with great respect all the communist-oriented governments across the globe, framing their “revolutions” as the paragon of change that should occur all over the world. This is the moment when the film completely lost my attention. The sequel throws out the window the message from the first film about suffering and oppression, and replaces it with the Marxist manifesto.

I also didn’t like how Shuya Nanahara was basically turned into a Peter Pan in this film. At the end of the previous picture, we see him running away with Noriko (her character appears only towards the end of the sequel) to start a new life. However, now we see him as a terrorist hell-bent on killing adults. Well, he and his comrades will eventually become adults as well, so… Let’s just say that Battle Royale 2 has a lot of plot holes.

This is not to say that there were not things that I liked. In particular, the new class was great. The students felt more vivid and better fleshed out than in the first Battle Royale. I genuinely rooted for them and felt sad when some of the principal characters died in agony. In addition, I loved the subplot involving Kitano’s daughter, Shiori (Ai Maeda). This should have been the main focus of the story, but instead, the filmmakers went with Shuya’s plan to conquer the world. Furthermore, the music score composed by Masamichi Amano was also magnificent.

Wonderful performances of the lead actors: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Ai Maeda, Shugo Oshinari, and Ayana Sakai deserve praise. Nevertheless, Riki Takuechi is a joke as the homeroom teacher. Maybe it is not entirely the actor’s fault. Maybe it is due to directorial instructions, but I could not take his overacting seriously. Sonny Chiba, on the other hand, (who appears in only one flashback scene) would have been better in this role.

Recommendations

The director’s intention was to make a controversial movie and, indeed, he achieved his goal. I recommend Battle Royale 2 only as a passing trivia from the history Japanese cinema. You can check it out for one time, but I doubt that you will find this sequel as a satisfactory conclusion of Battle Royale. Like I said in my previous review, the original movie is so perfect that a remake is unnecessary. Let me just add, that a sequel is unnecessary as well. With such a cult story, the follow-up will always end up being inferior. That does not mean, however, that Battle Royale 2 is riddled only with flaws. There are some positives, but they transpire just occasionally through a politically-charged script.

Overall score: 5/10

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