Before there was The Hunger Games there was Battle Royale, a 1999 Japanese novel about a dystopia where teenagers are forced by adults to battle to the death. And just ahead of the film version of The Hunger Games - shaping up as the omigawd event of the month - comes the Battle Royale movie.
Shot in 2000 by late Kenji Fukasaku but rarely seen in North America - indeed, it was almost banned in Japan - Battle Royale is a twisted and violent survivalist adventure layered with the chirpy pop ethos of Japan's youth culture. It can be viewed as critique of the devolution of society, or an indictment of that country's competitive education system: Students from a wide range of high-school stereotypes (the nerds, the sweethearts, the computer geeks, the transfer students, the hoodlums) must kill one another until there is only one left. (ottawacitizen.com)
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