Battle Royale

[Vanhalen 0]

I know I'm a little behind with this film, its one ive wanted to watch and never got around to it, well I saw it last night and fuck me is it powerful, Im a big fan of Beat Takeshi but he just outdoes himself here, what a film.

This website can explain it better than I can ever do, suffice to say, it is one of the most powerful films I have seen in years, alongside City of God, you owe it to yourself to get this film on DVD, just the running tally of kills was chilling in itself.

 

http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/battleroyale.htm

[Guest I Got Banned for Sucking]

I'm always on the lookout for it at the video store and at appropriate DVD outlets, but to no avail.

 

If you feel like purchasing it for me, PM me.

[Sandman9000 0]

Other than the junk stabbing, it's a great film.

 

Junk stabbing strictly forbbiden. No exceptions.

[BlackFlagg 0]

I just ordered the Directors cut 2-DVD set off Ebay

[Reverb 0]

I'm always on the lookout for it at the video store and at appropriate DVD outlets, but to no avail.

 

If you feel like purchasing it for me, PM me.

It depends where you live. The film will propably never be sold in North America. Here's the reason (coming from battleroyalefilm.net)

 

IS THE MOVIE REALLY BANNED IN AMERICA?

No. "Banned" implies a decision by the government to make exhibition, distribution or sale of the film against the law; technically, the U.S. government does not do that, leaving the responsibility of censoring or choosing not to distribute certain films to the movie industry itself, under the auspices of the Motion Picture Association of America, which assigns ratings to the films. A distributor can even choose not to let the MPAA review their movie and release it unrated; it makes it extremely difficult to put in the multiplex, but an unrated artistic movie can surely get an arthouse screening somewhere, and the distributor can always release it on DVD. So it's up to a distributor to come to an agreement with Toei, the Japanese company behind the movie Battle Royale, and get the rights to release it in some format (theatrical and/or home video) in North America, and this has not happened.

 

Why? it's a long story, and a relatively complicated issue that can't be chalked up completely to American distributors' timidity, Toei's

conditions for sale (financial and otherwise), or the MPAA standards. It's a combination of all of them, with different factors affecting things differently over time.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that it's NOT the gore and violence in the film that makes the material very controversial and questionable. It's the fact that the violence is being inflicted by fifteen-year-old characters on other fifteen-year-old characters. We see plenty of high-schoolers and college students get sliced and diced on American screens by masked maniacs. But never have we seen ninth graders kill other ninth graders in a sustained, wall-to-wall series of violent attacks. Whether we're still sore from Columbine or not, and whether the rule is codified or unspoken, there seems to be an age limit to characters that can be killed onscreen for American movies, which probably explains why BR possesses a lot of extra shock value to Americans.

 

 

Here's what we know:

Toei's asking price for distribution ranges from just under $1 million to well over $2 million, depending on who they're selling it to

(http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/sequel/oldnews2.html#603). Obviously North American distribution is the golden goose, so they'd charge top dollar--too costly for the smaller distributors like Media Blasters and Tokyo Shock who would be the ones most interested in the film.

 

 

Inquiries with Toei's International Sales department were met with downright rejection by Toei. (link 1, link 2) There wasn't even any mention of the price. Here are excerpts:

 

"...With much regret we inform you that we are withholding distribution,

in any formats, of the above mentioned picture for Northwest (sic) America

due to the picture's contents and theme..." - Hideyuki Baba, Manager, International Sales and Purchasing, Toei

 

"our company decided not to release the picture in North Amercia (sic)

despite many offers from American distributors including big studios."- Hideyuki Baba

 

 

In addition to pointing out the movie's extremely questionable content, an [utl=http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/3102/battle.htm]article[/url] in Premiere magazine reported that Toei had unreasonable expectations for the release of the film, wanting it to be a CTHD-size wide release and not confined to limited arthouse runs.

 

 

"If the next school shooting were to occur while Battle Royale was still

playing, there's a good chance that somebody would get sued." - David Schultz, distribution supervisor, American Cinematheque

 

"We offered to take it out as an art house film...but Toei wasn't interested.

They see it as this huge commercial hit and they want to open it on 300 screens

in shopping malls. What they don't understand is that it in the US it will never get

past the MPAA ratings board, and the major theater chains will never play it

un-rated. If you cut it enough to get an R rating there'd be nothing left."- Anonymous representative of an independent American distribution company

 

A representative of another company who made a bid for the distribution of the movie has also mentioned that Toei's contracts contained had many requirements that were unreasonable compared to most distribution contracts; without going into specifics, the person from the distribution company said that it granted certain rights to the licensor (Toei) that would under most circumstances go to the licensee.

 

So make of that what you will. One could speculate that this sad stalemate is the result of back-and-forth disagreements and negotiations, leading up to Toei's taking the film off the market (and by consequence, its sequel as well, which was offered to the international market even before production was completed and was snapped up by 30 nations--ironically, one of these "film market" gatherings was held in Los Angeles) when it comes to North American distribution.

 

But given that there's no government-imposed moratorium on the film, and there are some American distributors who would probably still want to distribute BR in the U.S., one can't say that there's a "ban" on BR, whether an actual one or a "technical" one.

 

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-iB-, there are 2 releases of BattleRoyale for Region 4. You might be able to get an original off the net.

 

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As far as I'm concerned, I'm a huge fan of the movie, I've downloaded it (planning on buying it) and I'm never bored when I see it. It's one of the best movies I've seen and it made me a japanese movie fan.

[Nighthawk 0]

I just ordered the Directors cut 2-DVD set off Ebay

That's the one I've got.

I like it, but it was hurt because I read the book first (amazing), then the manga (pretty damn good and I don't like manga at all), and then saw the movie. Each of those was progressively worst than the one preceding it. It's still real good. I love the soundtrack, and Beat Takeshi is, as always, the man.

If you really like the movie, you'll probably dig the manga, but every one of you should read the book if you haven't already. It's awesome.

[k thx 0]

The directors cut is actually worse than the original, IMHO. The appendixs at the end of the film really ruin it for me.

[Ravenbomb 0]

http://www.pokerindustries.com

 

 

They've got a Region 0 NTSC version of it. I don't have it yet, but I hear it's one of the better versions subtitle and video quality-wise

[LJSexay 0]

yeah this film is amazing. I really can't put my finger on why, though. I mean, the story seems so simplistic, yet it shows off SO many complexities too. I may be babbling, but I guess I still don't know how to express my love for this film.

 

oh, and Chiaki Kuriyama is hot here too.