Batoru rowaiaru II: Chinkonka

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.

I saw the first BR movie a while ago and I remember how quick the pace was. People would die one after the other and it was just about killing. There was barely any insight on the characters, making it a little dull, but i enjoyed it nonetheless because the special bond between Noriko and Kitano was added.

I expected the same with the second movie, but instead I got the opposite. The plot in this movie is really really lame. They go to the BR place, everyone's acting super crazy, and the main character's best friend dies, just like Nobu. Then everyone dies within the first 30 minutes or so. I also didn't like it how everyone had a partner and if your partner died, you'd die too. They had the important mission of killing a terrorist to complete here, but they just played around.

Though this movie lacked the plot, it made up for it in the meaning. For example,questions are raised. If teens and adults are so different, how do teens eventually become adults? Is it because they eventually realize they can't achieve their goal? And to prevent this disappointment, do the adults need to force this reality on them with violence? This is a very anti-communist movie so i can see why it's controvertial in countries.

Though i think the main message it's trying to send out is that life isn't just black and white. It's alright to be in-between.

So...this is an excellent movie that I would recommend seeing, you will get a lot out of it. And don't worry, the blood is so fake, it's funny. XD

Bad sequels are especially painful when their predecessors were brilliant and mesmerizing films. Like in the case of "Battle Royale", which was the most controversial shocker in years and probably the only film of the recent Asia-mania that was worth the hype it caused. BR featured a simply absurd story and exploitative violence, yet it worked. The sequel, for some reason, wants to be more ambitious and turns the premise into a gigantic anti-war campaign. Sole survivor Shuya Nanahara of part one has become a feared terrorized who declared war to all adults but, instead of responding, the government sends a fresh shipment of adolescents with death-collars over to the hideout island of Shuya in order to annihilate him. The only really good sequences are almost exact copies of situations that already took place in part one (a giant amount of nasty collar-explosions) but the shock-effect is gone. I normally have sympathy for filmmakers that try something new instead of re-telling the original but in this case the director should have optioned for a screenplay that harped more on the same successful idea. Something's also pretty wrong with the regularity and structure of this film. The first 45 minutes are stuffed with hard-boiled action, featuring for example a Saving Private Ryan-like coast-storming. But then the boredom kicks in and the story begins to live up to its extra title: "Requiem". Endlessly irritating friendship speeches, tedious morality and unnecessary flashbacks completely ruin the tempo of the film and you literally have to struggle yourself through every remaining minute that's left. 134 minutes is way too long for a film like this, by the way. The whole BR2 project is an incompetent mess and not at all recommended. It's too idiotic too pass for a war epic and far too moralizing to become a controversial cult flick.

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.

I just finished watching BATTLE ROYALE II and was really impressed. A great sequel that lives up to the first, because it adds enough new stuff to keep things fresh. I loved the idea that the students are now forced to become a strike force, and that their collars are now tied together (one dies, so does their partner).

The battles are brutal, although I'm a little iffy on the politics. Anyway, it's a fun, beautifully shot movie that shouldn't disappoint fans of Battle Royale. Definitely adding this one to my collection.