Teq's Review, Battle Royale

[Tequilla]

Hello all. I see a chance to liven up the place to do some book/TV/Movie Reviews for peoples enjoyment. So from here out I will be provideing reviews on various goodies, some old, some new and some strange. Most of you will prolly have seen many of the titles reviewed in which case skip the reading by all means, if ya aint though, I hope you find these little snippets usefull and informative.

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Battle Royale. (2000 - 2001)
Director:- Kinji Fukasaku

Synopsis:- Set sometime in the future (not made clear), Japanese school students are causing havok in the community and schooling system. In order maintain control the Japanese government passes a new law resulting in the Battle Royale. Each year a class of trouble makers is selected from those nominated by their teachers/communitys and transported (without their knowledge) to an island. Here they find themselves wearing explosive collars, and presented with a survival kit (containing amongst other items a random weapon). The idea is that the class must fight and kill each other in a certain amount of time untill only one student remains.

Review:- An Extremely violent and disturbing film, Battle Royale is an excellent Japanese film that will leave most of those interested in the Sci-Fi/Thriller genre on the edge of their seats. Packed with mucho violence and plenty of blood and gore to keep most sicko's cheering for more, this is an action packed and somewhat frightening film (in its implications and story plot). Good acting, great storyline and wonderfull effects (totally believeable and plenty of).

Score... 7.5/10

Availability:- Due to restrictions on Classifications and Rateings, the only way you will get to see this film is to either import it on VHS or DVD. It is highly unlikely that it will ever see an official release in the US and even less likely to appear in AUS. (It is commonly believed that the movie is indeed banned but that is not the case). There are three versions commercially available on DVD (with no good adaptations on VHS), but for each you will need a pretty good DVD player to view.

1st:- The Tartan - Original Version (NTSC 5.1 or UK Version). Sells for around $30 plus shipping and provides the best video quality and subtitles. However it contains only the basic movie (no extra's) and is officially out of print, which means getting your hands on it could be a challenge.

2nd:- The Universe - (Hong Kong - VCD Version). Readily available on ebay so you should be able to grab a copy for around $10 plus shipping. With no extra's and a pretty ordinary picture quality this is more for those who really desperately want this title and cant get it from anywhere else, or for those who simply wanna check it out.

3rd:- The Starmax (Korea Special Edition). Ok this is the nice one for fans of the special features on DVD's as this is packed with all the extra goodies, along with the Special Edition of the film (containing about 8 mins of extra footage). You should be able to grab this gem for around $28, however you need to be warned that the english subtitles are pretty ordinary to say the least, and the extras only have Koren subtitles so dont expect too much in that respect.

for more information on this great film check out
Battle Royale Film.

Information in the synopsis and review are 100% original works. Information obtained in the availability section taken from the aforementioned website.

[Nismosis]

Never seen it. It sounds really jacked up tho. I guess it's a good way to solve juvenile crime and overpopulation in a way.