This strange Japanese dystopian film is set in an imagined near future Japan in which youth have become so badly behaved and disrespectful that their elders have taken revenge by passing a law that every year a class of adolescent school boys and girls will be forcibly taken to an island. There, still in their school uniforms, they must fight each other to the death, using weapons they find there, and their own guile and ruthlessness, until, they are told, a maximum of one will survive.



Perhaps we lose something in translation from the Japanese, but 'Battle Royale' seems mostly just an unpleasant festival of murder.



I tried to watch it because the basic premise is often compared to the 'The Hunger Games', which I loved and strongly recommend all 3 of the books and at least the first 2 films. However, in 'The Hunger Games', we already care about the characters and the outcome before the Games begin. The battle to the death comes as a long-running climax to the story, not the whole story as it largely is in 'Battle Royale'



In the Hunger Games they mean much more because we first had a lot more time learning about the heroine Katniss and other contestants, Katniss's family, her life before the 'Games', why she has to take part in them, her preparation and her trainers. We have also seen much more of those who ordered the Games and why, and the world in which the Games take place.