I guess Japan took a cue from Hollywood filmmakers and figured that if one movie can be a hit, you might as well make another one. So three years later, Toei Company released Battle Royale II: Requiem to reviews that were primarily negative. I absolutely loved the first movie, so I was disheartened to hear so many people saying that the sequel wasn't very good.
I was never able to verify Battle Royale II's quality for myself because I'd never had the opportunity to actually see it. But since it came included with the original movie's four-disc Blu-ray release here in the United States, I figured I might as well give the movie a shot. So I guess I'll finally find out if the movie is as disappointing as I'd heard it is.
Three years have passed since the previous movie's conclusion. Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) has in that time banded together with a number of fellow Battle Royale survivors to form "the Wild Seven," a terrorist group who've declared war against the adults of Japan. They're deadly serious about their war, bombing a number of high-rise buildings in Tokyo and killing thousands in the process.
Their activities have prompted the Japanese government to change the way Battle Royale is played. A class of 42 students from Shikanotoride Junior High School are kidnapped by the government and entered into this new spin on the old game. Under Battle Royale's new rules, their objective is not to kill one another, but to eliminate Shuya and the Wild Seven. And to make sure they play along, the students have all been fitted with the familiar explosive collars. The twist, however, is that each student has been paired with another, and their collars will detonate their partner strays too far away or is killed.
Forced into compliance, the students are shipped to the Wild Seven's island base, where they have three days to kill Shuya if they wish to survive. And in a scene straight out of Saving Private Ryan (had that movie featured a bunch of panicky kids instead of trained soldiers), their numbers are violently cut in half before they can even get to the island. Only a handful of students survive the bombardment long enough to make it inside the Wild Seven's fortress, where Shuya realizes he's been combating innocent Battle Royale participants.
The Wild Seven deactivate and remove their collars, and Shuya offers them the opportunity to join him and rebel against those that made them unwilling soldiers. Realizing the game has changed and feeling pressure from the United States, the Japanese prime minister sends in the military to wipe out everything on the island with a pulse. The entire war comes to a head on the day after Christmas, with a bloody, explosive battle to end all battles.
I can definitely tell you with absolutely no hesitation that Battle Royale II: Requiem isn't very good at all. It's not terrible; I've seen worse movies. But Battle Royale II is so mind-numbingly mediocre and banal that after a while I stopped caring and started thinking of all the other things I could have been doing instead of watching this movie. It's not just a disappointing sequel, but it's a frustrating letdown of a movie altogether.
The movie was originally supposed to be directed by Kenji Fukasaku, who helmed the first Battle Royale. However, his son Kenta was forced to step in to replace him her after he tragically lost his battle with prostate cancer after shooting only one scene. To his credit, Kenta ― who actually made his feature film directorial debut here ― does a fairly decent job putting the movie together.
Battle Royale II lacks the more artistic aesthetic of the first movie, as the younger Fukasaku approaches the sequel as if it were your run-of-the-mill war movie. I wasn't joking when I compared that one scene to Saving Private Ryan earlier. It really does feel a lot like the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. Almost all of the action scenes are like that, with shaky handheld camerawork and quick editing. It makes the movie very tonally different from the first movie, which might not be a bad thing since it means Battle Royale II isn't just a lame ripoff of its predecessor.
The only bad part is that after a while, all the action scenes start blurring together until it just starts getting boring. It doesn't help anything that the screenplay, written by Fukasaku and Norio Kida, is really poorly done. It's obvious that Fukasaku and Kida meant for it to be a social commentary on the nature of war, because they hammer you over the head with it instead of trying to be even a little subtle. There's even one part where they try to invoke memories of the September 11th attacks, something I thought felt more exploitative than anything else.
There's also pretty much zero character development, especially among the Battle Royale students. Most of the kids from the first movie weren't completely well-rounded characters either, but you could still tell they had lives and friendships before finding themselves stuck in the Battle Royale scenario. Battle Royale II's students, on the other hand, are all useless cannon fodder. The fact that their collars are all interlinked, thus killing the kids two at a time, doesn't help this. It's basically killing 42 birds with 21 stones. Did Fukasaku and Kida just want to up the carnage for the sake of mindless violence? Was this part of that "war is hell" commentary? And just how are we supposed to care about the students if they get their heads popped off as soon as they appear onscreen?
Let's move on to the cast, most of whom I felt didn't really make an impression. But there were a few actors whose performances I thought were worth talking about, like Riki Takeuchi. Takeuchi plays the role of the Battle Royale "teacher" this time around, and he feels like he's trying to channel Takeshi Kitano's performance from the first movie, only more smug and a hundred times hammier. Even at his silliest, Takeuchi is actually pretty good.
Tatsuya Fujiwara returns to the role he played in the first movie, and I thought he was a little inconsistent. He tries his hardest to come across as a philosophical yet hardass fugitive scarred by the horrors of a war he never wanted, but it doesn't really work. Fujiwara is actually a lot better in his character's more introspective moments, when he lets his guard down. In those moments, Fujiwara is fantastic. Sadly, there aren't enough of those moments, which means he doesn't get to shine like he could.
Among the actors playing the students, Shugo Oshinari is quite obviously trying, but I had a hard time buying his performance. He looks like what would happen if D.J. Qualls was an Asian kid that was trying way too hard to be dramatic. And I can't say I really cared for Ai Maeda either. She plays her part like she's off in another world, like she's distanced herself from everything. Maybe that's what Maeda was going for, I don't know, but it feels more awkward and distracting than anything else.
I will say, though, that I liked Yuki Ito in his short appearance as an ill-fated student, but the rest of the cast is just kinda there and don't do anything to stand out. It was nice to see Takeshi Kitano and Sonny Chiba pop up in their far-too-brief cameos, though. I wish they'd gotten to stick around longer, because those two guys are awesome.
I didn't think the movie was as abysmally rotten as people make it out to be, but Battle Royale II: Requiem is still a really awful sequel and generally lame movie altogether. The whole thing is poorly conceived, poorly executed, and just plain poor. And knowing that Battle Royale spawned such a disappointing movie is a real bummer, considering how much I like and enjoy the first movie. So I'm not giving the sequel anything more than two stars. And you know what? It just hit me: With all the critical and financial success that The Hunger Games has been enjoying as of late, I wonder if we'll ever see that American remake of Battle Royale that was rumored for so long.
Final Rating: **
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