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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Battle Royale (2000) [Film Review]

Battle Royale; or, The Ultimate Survival Programme

     Life is a game. So fight for survival...and find out if you're worth it.

Battle Royale is the movie that needs no introduction. Based on a novel by Koshun Takami and directed by veteran filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku, the film made its way to the silver screen on December 16, 2000 and it took the popular culture by the storm. Apart from a sequel, there was also a manga adaptation and tie-in books. In addition, lots of video games, visual novels, and anime used the phrase “battle royale” as an umbrella term to describe the new genre (the last man standing challenges). The harrowing story about 42 students forced to fight each other to the death is a modern morality tale that criticises authoritarian regimes and degradation of our society
Release Info

Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto
Language: Japanese Original Title: バトル・ロワイアル Runtime: 110 min

 

Synopsis

Due to economic recession, Japan has fallen into chaos. As a result, many of the youngsters rebelled against authorities. In order to discipline the unruly youth, the government has passed the Battle Royale Act. Each year, one grade 9 class is selected at random and sent on a remote island. They are given instructions, survival gear, and weapons. They are ordered to kill each other. Any sort of rebellion will be punished by death. Any escape attempt will also be punished by death. The only winner of the game is the one student left alive after the time period of three days. This is the story of Class 3-B and their teacher, Kitano (Takeshi Kitano).

 

The Last Class

Probably, every enthusiast of Japanese cinema has heard about Battle Royale. I was absolutely stunned when I saw this movie for the first time, roughly a decade ago. Of course, this is a top-class action survival horror, but I believe that its shock value was not emphasised merely to satisfy the vanity of some less-than-normal viewers. I believe that the violence of Battle Royale is not meaningless. In fact, it serves to make a point.

 

Kinji Fukasaku signed on to direct the picture because the story reminded him about his own experiences during World War II. Koshun Takami explained in the afterword of the 2009 edition of the novel, that the story is about fear and betrayal (He got an inspiration for the novel after having a hallucinatory dream). In my opinion, Battle Royale is an outcry about how broken our world is. Evidently, we do not kill students for sport, but maniacs do commit horrible crimes and ordinary people are constantly betrayed by authority figures (politicians, parents, teachers). Not all of the students participating in the game are bad by default: some were made crazy, some act out of fear, and some refuse to participate in this madness (but still, all of their actions are monitored by Kitano and the military). The students of Class 3-B reflect different kinds of people and different approaches to life (all within the grasp of mighty government).

 

Thought-provoking script and gruesome action set pieces are not the only advantages of Battle Royale. Powerful visuals are accompanied by a magnificent music score composed by Masamichi Amano. Apart from the usage of classical music, I particularly liked Amano’s “Winner of Sorrow” track.

 

From the making of featurette, one can clearly see that Kinji Fukasaku, while directing on the set, was like a warrior on a battlefield. Getting each shot right was extremely important to him. In addition, it is striking that in his time off, Fukasaku would drink beer and drive Skyline R32 like a totally laid back guy.

Teenagers playing high school kids approached the matter very seriously, even though some of their roles were small. Nevertheless, the chaos of the motion picture was not reflected on the set. Everyone was in good spirits and ready to work, but the boys and the girls tended to stay away from each other. Takeshi Kitano himself seemed very timid during the shooting, but the director managed to bring the badass out of him we all know and love. Interestingly, Kitano drew by himself the famous painting which is featured at the end of the movie and in the sequel.

In fact, there are two versions of Battle Royale available. The theatrical cut runs at 110 minutes and the Special Edition cut which is approximately 10 minutes longer. It features additional scenes that were shot after the original release of the movie, including basketball game flashbacks, Mitsuko Souma’s backstory, and an extended scene between Kitano and Noriko. I personally prefer the theatrical cut because it has better pacing.

 

Speaking about performances, literally everyone gave their best in the movie. Of course performances of the three main leads: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, and Taro Yamamoto will remain unforgettable. I also enjoyed small parts done by (now legendary) Chiaki Kuriyama and Kou Shibasaki. Takeshi Kitano was great as the teacher. Additionally, we cannot forget about Yuko Miyamura (that crazy awesome voice actress) who played the host of the Battle Royale Video Guide!

 

Recommendations

All things considered, Battle Royale is a movie that does not need any remake in this day and age. There is constant talk about it in Hollywood, but I hope that nothing will come to fruition. (Besides, the Americans made a shameless rip-off already!) Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale is a timeless cult film that will certainly continue to inspire new generations of fans of Japanese pop-culture. In the meantime, all of us run, no matter how far, run for all we're worth!

Overall score: 8/10

Samurai Reincarnation (1981) [Film Review]

Samurai Reincarnation; or, Sonny Chiba vs. Evil Samurai Spirits from Hell!

      Master Jubei, if you encounter God, God will be cut. If you encounter an evil spirit then it will be cut. This... this is the greatest sword ever made by Muramasa.

When the leader of a group of slaughtered Japanese Catholics comes back to life as a demon and assembles the team of the most badass dead samurai in order to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate and plunge Japan into raging chaos, you know there is nobody else to call than Sonny Chiba himself.

Release Info

Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku Starring: Sonny Chiba, Kenji Sawada, Tomisaburo Wakayama, Ken Ogata
Language: Japanese Original Title: 魔界転生 Runtime: 120 min

Synopsis

The movie starts with the crush of the real Shimabara Rebellion in the 17th century, during the Edo Period. Thirty-seven thousand peasant Catholics rebelled in the name of religious freedom but the Shogunate army quickly besieged and massacred them at Hara Caste. The Christian leader Amakusa Shiro (Kenji Sawada) was beheaded and his severed head was put on public display outside the castle. However, due to evil forces, he comes back to life in order to avenge his people. He renounces God and embraces Satan as his true deity instead; which gives him supernatural powers. In this way, Shiro travels through Japan recruiting the most powerful samurai at their deathbeds, so they could help him kill the shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna (Noboru Matsuhashi). In order to stop the vicious demons, an honourable samurai with an eyepatch, Jubei Yagyu (Sonny Chiba) sets off on a journey to hunt them down and kill once and for all.

Resurrection from Hell

The movie is based on a novel by Futaro Yamada called Makai Tensho and the author devised probably one of the finest pieces of historical fiction. Yes, the story of samurai demons trying to take over Japan sounds interesting in itself (most especially for those who played the game Throne of Darkness fifteen years ago), but the real awesome thing in this movie is that there are only real historical figures in it. The Demonic team consists of: Amakusa Shiro (a Christian leader), Lady Hosokawa (a female samurai), Inshun Hozoin (a priest and a master of spearmanship), Musashi Miyamoto (obviously, the best samurai who ever lived), and Munenori Yagyu (a retainer of the Tokugawa house). Whereas “Team Salvation” includes Jubei Yagyu (son of Munenori and one of the most recognisable samurai in popular culture), Muramasa (a famous swordsmith who was allegedly able to make “wicked swords” that could defeat demons), and Otsu (daughter of Musashi’s wife).

Now that is a lot of characters for one story, but the movie tends to focus predominantly on the demons rather than on the good guys. The whole process of recruiting the fallen samurai and getting to know their back stories consumes the first half of the picture. The second half, on the other hand, centres on the demons' attempts to destroy the Shogunate and Jubei’s preparations to confront them. Nevertheless, it is still highly interesting to watch this film, mostly due to the fact that the only true villain in the story is Amakusa Shiro who deceived the restless souls of fellow samurai. Due to the leader’s sick manipulations we get to know that the rest of the baddies simply want to fulfill their hidden desires which they did not manage to do during their lifetimes.

Needless to say, all of the fights starting from Shiro’s slaughter of the troops and finishing on the final epic confrontation in the burning Edo Castle are awesome and Sonny Chiba definitely displays some kick-ass sword skills. The only disappointing thing may be the score. It is really bland and does not fit into the dark tone of the film. Apart from this issue, the ending seems a bit rushed, as if the makers for some reason decided to cut out the concluding scene. Nevertheless, these things do not really disrupt the reception of the movie.

Recommendations

If you want to enjoy this film, I suggest you watch it with zero expectations. Samurai Reincarnation may not be one of the chanbara classics with Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai, but it is certainly one of the highlights from the period in which this particular genre started losing popularity in Japanese cinema. Plus, if you like Sonny Chiba, the film is definitely worth watching.

Overall score: 7/10