It’s only about twelve years late, but here’s a US trailer for the Japanese film Battle Royale, in which a class full of kids is forced to fight each other to the death on a remote island. The movie was released in 2000, and directed by renowned Japanese filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku based on the novel of the same name by Koushun Takami.
Though it seems that nearly everyone who wants to has seen the film through various legitimate and less legitimate DVD releases, Battle Royale has never been officially available in the US. That changes in March, when Anchor Bay releases the movie on Blu-ray — just in time for the theatrical release of The Hunger Games, which bears a striking plot similarity to Battle Royale.
See a trailer for the DVD release below. Read More »
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Posted on Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 by David Chen
This week, David Chen, Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley try to get excited about Darren Aronofsky’s Wolverine, discuss the place of Battle Royale in a “post-Saw” world, and wonder whether or not Tony Scott is stoppable. Special guest Tasha Robinson joins us from AV Club.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Join us on Sunday (11/21) at 10 PM EST / 7 PM PST at Slashfilm’s live page as we review Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I.
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Back in May we heard that Toei was converting Battle Royale to 3D. That seemed like a bad idea, but it was more a curiosity than anything else. After all, the film was never given distribution in the States when originally released so there was no reason to think this 3D version would make it across the sea, either. But now Anchor Bay has reportedly picked up rights to the film, so we may see a real US release of Battle Royale after all these years, albeit in 3D. Read More »
Briefly: This is basically just an article to anger all the existing fans of Battle Royale. Sorry about that. Toei is preparing a post-converted theatrical reissue of Battle Royale for release in late November of this year. This isn’t a remake, a new version or a sequel. Just a conversion of the existing film from Kinji Fukusaku, which at the time of its release was a monster hit in Japan, and caused no small amount of controversy. The film adapts Koushun Takami‘s novel about a group of students in an alternate, fascist Japan who are taken to an island and forced to kill one another in an outlandish game of survival.
Fukusaku’s son is supervising the conversion; he also wrote the screenplay for Battle Royale, and after his father died in 2003, he took over directing the sequel. (That didn’t turn out so well.) Which cut of the film will be converted is unclear; there’s the original theatrical, and a special edition with a few extra minutes and more CGI. And Battle Royale was never a visual powerhouse, so I can’t imagine how well this will convert to 3D. The film never had a proper theatrical release in the US; this release may be limited to Japan. [Screen Daily]
Quentin Tarantino has recorded a list of his top 20 favorite films which have been released over the last 17 years. What’s so special about the last 17 years, or the year 1992? That was the year Tarantino became a filmmaker.
Films on Tarantino’s list include Battle Royale, Anything Else, Audition, Blade, Boogie Nights, Dazed & Confused, Dogville, Fight Club, Fridays, The Host, The Insider, Joint Security Area, Lost In Translation, The Matrix, Memories of Murder, Police Story 3, Shaun of the Dead, Speed, Team America, and Unbreakable. It think it’s interesting that Tarantino mentions that The Matrix sequels ruined the mythology, enough to push the first film off the top of his list. Watch the full list after the jump, complete with commentary from Tarantino himself .
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As you probably know by now, Gallery 1988 will be holding their third annual pop culture art show Crazy4Cult 3D from July 16th (TONIGHT!!!) to August 8th in Los Angeles. Gallery1988 has given us permission to run an exclusive preview of some of the cool artwork which hasn’t been seen yet, that will be available at the show. After the jump we’ve included over 30 pieces of the awesome art you’ll see at the show. If you’re interested in buying any of the original art — make sure you’re there! If you want to order any of the prints, you can email Gallery 1988 at gallery1988@aol.com or call them at 323 937 7088.
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Welcome to another edition of Movie Playlist, where we talk to the writers, directors, and stars about their favorite films. I’ve always found the celebrity playlists on iTunes to be interesting. Most everyone in the film business moved to Hollywood after discovering their love of films. And I’ve always love talking to people about their favorite films. So talking to the people who make the movies about their favorite films just seemed like a natural idea.
Jay Baruchel was relatively new to American audiences before his debut as the star of the critically acclaimed FOX-TV series Undeclared. The Canadian-born actor has since appeared in a number of feature films, including The Rules of Attraction, Almost Famous, Million Dollar Baby,and Fanboys. Baruchel reunited with Undeclared creator Judd Apatow last summer in Universal Pictures’ smash hit Knocked Up. You can see him in theaters now as Kevin Sandusky in Tropic Thunder. /Film’s David Chen conducted this interview.
Jay Baruchel: “There is sort of a repertoire that I will — once a year I will have to watch each one of them. I’ll say that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I can watch that movie anytime. It’s pretty much the prefect comedy and it’s kind of an amazing movie plot wise because it doesn’t follow the sort of usual quintessential Joseph Campbell story. It’s not about a guy that learns anything over a journey and becomes a different person. Ferris is the same son of a bitch the whole movie, he just effects change wherever he is and really the stakes are really never all that high and he’s happy the whole time. And the fact that they pulled that off and it is as funny as it is and as cool as it is, it just amazing.”
“A Japanese film called Battle Royale is one of my favorites and that’s like a John Hughes movie on crystal meth. Like to me Battle Royale there is not greater meditation on Teen X than that movie. That is the greatest coming of age movie I’ve ever seen.”
“I quite like a movie called The Wrong Guy with Dave Foley. It’s a little Canadian movie that not many people have seen but it’s just possibly one of the funniest movies ever made.”
“Another movie that I really, really love that I constantly get into arguments about it Irreversible. That’s probably my favorite film of all time. To me that’s like the single greatest work of cinema that I’ve ever seen and another thing is that in an era such as this where everything is made by committee, it’s very rare to see one artist unfiltered vision. And Gaspar Noé wrote, directed, produced, and literally operated the camera on Irreversible, so this is his movie, you know?”
“And then Carlito’s Way, Man Hunter, JFK, that’s the playlist. I watch each of those movies once a year.”
See Jay in Tropic Thunder, in theaters now!
