Juego Sangriento II: La Venganza

It pains me to say that I "suffered" through BATTLE ROYALE 2, the sequel to one of my favorite films of all times.

What's missing from BR2 is Kinji Fukusaku, the legendary action director who helmed the first film and died one day of shooting into this. His son Kenta replaced him.

Everything that made BR1 so amazing is botched badly here. Kenta Fukusaku fails to keep forty-one characters spinning. He fails to bring power and aesthetic catharsis to the film's violence. He fails to marry social commentary to strong exploitation elements.

The first film is referenced plot-wise and musically. The BR rules are altered slightly. Danger Zones still exist. The corpses are counted on screen.

But it's boring. Yes, BR2 is a crashing bore. The SAVING PRIVATE RYAN sequence demonstrates its paucity of ideas. The special effects are cheesy and obvious and the film's efforts to wring emotions out of one-dimensional relationships are pathetic.

I had high hopes. After one hour I just wanted it to end.

Never underestimate the importance of a good director or the genius required to deliver a masterpiece.

The enjoyably histrionic Lord Of The Flies-meets-The Running Man premise of Battle Royale is taken a film too far and far too seriously in this confused, confusing mess of a sequel.

Another class of errant schoolkids is abducted by the Japanese authorities, fitted with explosive collars, and despatched to a bleak island for a particularly harsh lesson in survival. But instead of killing one another, they must fight a band of young terrorists led by previous Battle Royale 'winner' Shuga. To the death. The very messy death.

The opening scene is identical to the first Battle, with a wacko 'teacher' (think Mr Blonde in a leather jacket) pairing up the kids and gleefully demonstrating that if one of the pair dies, so must the other. Then, from the chaotic Saving Private Ryan-like landing on the island to the dreadfully protracted denouement, it's an epilepsy-inducing procession of carnage and cod philosophy.

Had Fukasaku and Son stuck to pure action, BRII would have made for queasy fun. But their propensity for heavy-handed sermonising on the nature of war and society is not only unconvincing, it's boring. If the characters put as much effort into fighting as they do delivering 'profound' speeches, their chances of survival would be infinitely higher.

That's not to say that lots and lots of people don't get blown up, shot, eviscerated and decapitated. They certainly do. Unfortunately, BRII looks like a video game and sounds like a sociology lesson as given by someone who's had too much saké.

The original Battle Royale is one of my favourite films of all time. It's fusion of extreme violence and a thought provoking, complex substance made for a very different and refreshing movie. The sequel, unfortunately, is merely a stale variation on the events of the first film. It's ironic that this sequel is a complete disaster as making a sequel to 'Battle Royale' should be one of the easiest tasks of all time. It's simple; another battle royale, with all the uncompromising violence of the first, and to continue the story; we'll have Nanahara, survivor of the first film, put back into the frey. Simple. But no; for some reason, the writers have opted for some drivel involving Nanahara becoming an internationally wanted terrorists and an act known as 'BR 2', whereby school children are 'hired' to fight terrorist threats...or something. Now, you might be thinking along the lines of "well, as long as there's school kids with weapons, I'm happy'; but it's no again. The film plays out more like a feature length version of the start of Saving Private Ryan. That's it; it's more or less a simple war film. Damn.

One of the things that made the first film work was the underlying theme that the violence is coming from children that know each other, killing each other. This gave the film a soul-searching horrific edge; "could you kill your best friend" was the tagline, and the film got it's depth from that. Here, that message is gone; and it's replacement is a dull 'anti-war' one. The film piles on the sentiment in an effort to get it's message across, but it never really succeeds. The film also seems keen to prioritise it's 'Requiem' subtitle. Far too keen, in fact. The requiem sequences were the worst thing about the first film; interrupting the adrenaline pumping action sequences all too regularly, I don't doubt that I'm the only person who feels this way. Battle Royale 2 is much like one long requiem sequence, with characters 'reflecting' left and right and the film on the whole suffers because of this. If the film had focused more on character development, the reflecting parts might have worked because we would have cared; but it doesn't, so we don't. Pretty stupid really.

Battle Royale 2 isn't completely devoid of positive aspects, however; the first half hour is definitely good. Going back to how it was in the first film, we see a group of unwitting school children kidnapped by the government and, of course, the hysteria that results in a couple of the kids ending up dead. Although this is almost a complete copy of the first film (we've got knives being thrown, necklaces exploding etc), it works because the first film worked, and fans of the original masterpiece will no doubt enjoy it. However; when I said that I'd have been happy with just 'another Battle Royale', I did mean one that's different from the first one, not just a remake of it. In fact, the sequel takes most of the ideas from the first film and reuses them; from the danger zones to the maniacal teacher who delights in seeing his kids maimed and killed. The only real new idea in the movie is the idea of the 'tag game', which involves the detonators being linked to each other, so if your partner dies; you go too. However, although this is a fairly good new idea, it doesn't make sense.... you see, the government want these kids to kill Nanahara, so why do they make it hard for them? Why not send them in with an army of tanks and just have done with it? Why not just bombard the island with napalm? On that note: I deem this movie ridiculous and pointless, and therefore not worth your time. Even if you like the original as I do; this film is one to miss.

I watched Battle Royale a week before its sequel, and the effects the first had on me were still with me. I feel I tend to notice detail more than some people, but I know I look for it. While Battle Royale's premise was unusual, it was a great story. To imagine you and your friends dropped into a game where you had to kill each other...to see how the students were either so willing to kill, or else strive for union, or else just accept death-it was a wonderful story, with enough of all genres to keep me interested and also moved by it. Kitano was the perfect villain...human but vengeful. To see a sadistic person with so much depth, just walking around in a track suit. It was a beautiful movie with characters you cared about.

But, this is not a review of Battle Royale, but its inferior sequel. Now, once I read the premise, I knew it wouldn't be as good as its predecessor. But I wanted to see it nonetheless. First, its good to see the writer cares about recycling, because he certainly did that. We are treated a second time around to the students herded into a room and confronted by their ex-teacher. We get to see yet another trio of friends broken up when one is killed, and the others vow revenge. This time, instead of a bloody photograph to haunt the hero, it's a bloody football. From here, the story is different, but this is where it really loses its footing.

The movie makes no sense: why not just bomb the island if they're so worried about Shuya and his terrorist group? And, why make it impossible for the students to kill Shuya by keeping danger zones, and making so that when one person dies, their partner has to? Obviously the "teacher" did not care much about them accomplishing their mission, but did want to make the "game" move faster by having two people die at a time.

Then, we're treated to 45 minutes of bore, where the movie tries to get across a strong message concerning terrorism and peace. Now, I do not get bored easily. I love character development and scenes where the music just carries you along while you get to feel what the characters are feeling. But this was just falling flat in its message. And it was redundant. Every time they said something, it was a rehashing of some point already made. None of the characters were interesting. Even Shuya had become some kind of monk. And the teacher, Riki, was the stereotypical American villain. Donning a black cloak, evil laugh, and threatening one-liners. But, he was boring. Nothing like the human Kitano we got to see in the original.

Not much else to say. If they could just take the few sequences with Kitano out and insert them into Battle Royale, then we'd have no reason to watch this sequel. Maybe they should consider this...

As with most people who know anything about films, or just those with a sick and morbid sense of humour, I loved the original Battle Royale. It is my favourite film of all time, and I expect will be till the day I die. Never before had such an obscure concept on paper, transfer into such cinematic gold. So, as you can imagine, if you go in expecting the same of BR2 then you're going to be disappointed.

The first thing to note when seeing BR2, is don't get your hopes up. Good sequels are often looked down upon merely because they pale in comparison to the original. That said, BR2 is a good film, but it's not the original Battle Royale, and don't expect as much. What made the original great was 3 things: Originality, an intense amount of dark humoured violence, and Beat 'Kitano' Tekashi. BR2 has none of these (well a little Beat Tekashi).

What first strikes you odd about BR2 is exactly what they were thinking for the replacement they hired for Beat Kitano. Personally I'd have a preferred a "we cloned him so here he is" storyline line just so they could recast the master that is Beat Tekashi, than the low grade actor they got for this film. Whereas Kitano managed to pull off the role effortlessly with a sense of depression and casual disregard for life which excellently portrayed what his character was going through, the Kitano replacement left little to no explanation to what he was doing there. What adds to the confusion is when we find out he is there against his will, and we are left hints that he might have been one of the first BR survivors (yet nothing is fully revealed, nor ever will be). Although it is hard for any man to fill Tekashi's shoes, this person just does an awful job, and towards the end I just got confused to what his motivation and purpose was in the film.

What has also gone in this sequel, is the dark humour present in the random and senseless killings. Instead, this has been replaced with a very involved and heavy storyline, which makes the deaths much less enjoyable to watch (although there are still a few whoppers in there). What annoyed me most about this film however, was the extremeness of the anti American and pro terrorist underlying plot. Being from the UK it is all to refreshing to see a movie in which America is finally made to answer for it's injustices to the majority of the world, and a message which communicates that not all terrorists are evil and that many are just fighting for a cause the only way they know how...but BR2 took it too far even for me. Americans tend to hold the belief that all terrorists are evil, while BR2 holds the belief that all terrorists are freedom fighters, if you look somewhere in the middle then you'll find the truth in the way the world works.

Unfortunately, the deaths in this film are almost entirely from being shot at long distance, and hence removes the entertainment of the numerous different types of killings that was present in the first film. Following on from a film where a decapitated head had a grenade stuffed in it's mouth and was thrown through a window...I was expecting a little more gratuity than we are given. Towards the end of the film one is left feeling that they sacrificed everything that BR was about, in favour of making a heavily political anti American film.

Don't go into this movie expecting the lighthearted nature of the first film, this sequel is very much darker and deeper. And if you can get past the lameness of the Kitano replacement, the fact that Kawada and Korijima aren't in it, and can overlook the blatant anti American underlying tone, then you'll at least find this film entertaining. I would give this film 7/10, and would recommend you at least watch it. Just keep in mind that it's not as good as BR1, and nothing ever will be, and you may yet walk out the cinema with a smile.