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‘Battle Royale II: Revenge’ (2003) is the sequel to the cult Japanese gore-fest ‘Battle Royale’ (2000). Continuing the story three years later, we are introduced to a new class of students chosen to play the game, but this time the rules are different. Rather than face each other in a battle to the death, the delinquents, misfits and drop-outs from Shikanotoride Junior High School are kidnapped, taken to a secluded island and given one objective; to find the feared terrorist Nanahara Shuya (played by Tatsuya Fujiwara), one of the survivors from the previous film and kill him. Many of the students are motivated to kill as they were orphaned when Shuya's terrorist group Wild Seven bombed the cities. In particular, Shiori Kitano (Ai Maeda) decides to enrol for the game in order to gain revenge for her father’s death, as she believes that Shuya shot him whilst escaping from the island. Other rules of the revised BR act are that this game is different as the collars that every student is forced to wear track their progress on their mission are now linked in pairs and as the students are eventually killed off through various gruesome situations, their corresponding team mate is killed too, due to an explosive charge in the collar; activated upon their partner's death.
The BR act has been revised due to a terrorist attack in the previous year by Shuya and Wild Seven. The film opens with an establishing shot of a city taken from above, which then focuses on a scene reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks in New York. A large skyscraper explodes suddenly, and we then see a tile sequence similar to the previous film which explains that Japan is currently going through an "Age of Terror". The new BR game is called "Justice" and is used as a counter-terrorism measure against Wild Seven. Our introduction to Wild Seven is through a broadcast which interrupts the film in the style of the terrorist messages of the type that we are used to seeing on the news. We see Shuya for the first time, dressed in military guerrilla type clothing and holding an AK-47. His statement declares war against the grown-up population (defined as anybody over 20 years old) as he cannot forgive them for making young people kill each other as in the previous film.
The film was first released with the alternate title ‘Battle Royale II: Requiem’, possibly in reference to the repeated message that the dead should be remembered and also in reference to the opening music, "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem, also used in the first film. The word Requiem is also a fitting choice when the death of the director Kinji Fukasaku from cancer is taken into consideration. Fukasaku died during shooting some of the early scenes and the responsibility of finishing the movie was given to his son Kenta Fukasaku who had co-directed the first film. By bringing his father's vision into fruition, it may be remembered as a requiem for Fukasaku senior's life. The title was changed to "Revenge" upon the release of the extended version of the film. Revenge is a strong theme running throughout the movie; most of the events that occur are the result of some type of retaliation. The adult community created the BR act to combat the problems with the youth of society so Shuya and Wild Seven declare war on the adults for forcing them into violence. The adults retaliate against Shuya's declaration of war by revising the BR act and turning its focus onto stopping Shuya for good rather than dealing with the children as a whole, the reasoning behind this is that if they can stop the rebellious influence of Shuya then the rest of Wild Seven will back down. By getting the children to fight this battle will also effectively solve the problems that occurred within the first BR act. Instead of fighting each other, the children have a common enemy to unite against.
To demonstrate a more detailed example of revenge within the plot, Shiori Kitano purposely enters the BR for the opportunity to avenge her father. She had left school when she realised that her father's painting of an island full of dead bodies did not include her and it is later explained to her that the girl in the centre of the painting was Noriko. She wants to kill Shuya herself as she believes that he was behind her father’s demise. In fact, she never finds out that he killed suicide due to the fact that she hated him because of his unhealthy obsession with Noriko (Aki Maeda), the other survivor of the previous Battle Royale. Shiori's father, Takeshi Kitano was the teacher at Noriko and Shuya's school until he was stabbed by Shuya's best friend Nobu. When Shuya and Noriko entered the first Battle Royale, they were shocked when their old teacher was revealed as the enforcer of the game's rules.
Riki Takeuchi (Riki Takeuchi), the teacher in ‘Battle Royale II: Revenge’, is acting on behalf of the government in a similar role to Kitano, enforcing the BR act but we find that there is more than just revenge against Shuya that is to be gained from the battle. Whilst at the induction, he lists countries that have been bombed by the U.S within the last 60 years. This extensive list includes Cuba, Iraq, Cambodia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Japan. The reason why this subject has been bought up is never fully explained but it seems that the government has got larger plans for revenge than just eliminating Wild Seven.
The induction scene in ‘Battle Royale II: Revenge’ mirrors the original film; the students are herded into a cage like building as before and are surrounded by armed guards. They are then confronted with their teacher, expecting him to be able to get them out of the situation but this is not the case when they are treated more like they are in prison or the army than at school and they feel threatened when they see their teacher's sadistic streak for the first time. The main character is also established during these early scenes, in the first film it was Shuya, and in "Revenge" we follow Takuma Aoi (Shugo Oshinari), referred to throughout the film as "Taku" and both of their experiences of the induction are almost identical. Both have best friends who are killed during this scene due to their refusal to join in the game. Shuya's friend Nobu is killed when the explosive device in his collar is activated and Taku's friend Shintori Makimura (Masaya Kikawada) is shot in the leg and then again in the head at point blank range. The effects of the collar are demonstrated in ‘Battle Royale II: Revenge’ when Shintori's counterpart Kazumi Fukuda (Aja) hears the ominous beeping sound coming from her collar. Takeuchi explains the rules of the tag-match at this point and her fellow students run around avoiding her until the collar finally explodes in a shower of blood.
The only differences between the two are that the scene in ‘Battle Royale II: Revenge’ is less informative than its matching scene in the first film which included a training video and more background information from the teacher character. This may be because Fukasaku is relying on the audience to have seen the earlier film and instead of overloading the first few scenes with too much information and backstory, he would much rather get straight to the battle sequences. However, this is one of many flaws within the plot of this film, because we are not properly introduced to all of the characters and the story of the BR act, to someone who had not seen the earlier film, the plot would be extremely difficult to follow.
However, we are probably not introduced to all of the characters fully as almost half of them are killed before they even reach the island where Shuya is hiding. This scene is familiar to anybody who has seen any film that shows a recreation of the D-Day landings such as "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) or "The Longest Day" (1962). The students try to make their way off the beaches under heavy artillery fire from Wild Seven's base. The body count is high as the tag-team function of the collars double the fatalities and then the students must brave jungle terrain and landmines to make their way to Shuya's hideout. If ‘Battle Royale II: Revenge’ had to be compared to any kind of war, it would be the Vietnam War. The similarities range from the fact that it is set in a jungle terrain, the fighters are young and not sure of why they are fighting and that they are convinced it is a hopeless and losing battle. However, this changes when they reach Shuya and realise that he is not too different from themselves and the remaining few who haven't been killed on the previous missions decide to join Wild Seven as they have a better chance of survival.
Ultimately, when provided with the opportunity of an escape, some of the students decide to stay and fight to the end with Shuya, this includes Taku, who empathises with Shuya due to their similar experiences, and Shiori, whose motives are unclear whether she is actually on Shyua's side or just biding her time until he is within her sights. As somebody reading the English subtitles, we lose a lot of the subtleties of the Japanese language and a lot of implied meanings are missed. The effort has to be made in order to understand what the characters mean through their speech by paying attention to their expressions and body language. However, ‘Battle Royale II: Revenge’ is still a hard film to follow, even without the language barrier. This may be due to the problems with the delayed production and Fukasaku's inability to do things as his father intended as he had to complete the film alone. The film’s final message is a letter from a 10-year-old child, asking what peace is like. For Taku and Shuya, this may never be known, as the memories of their battles will stay with them forever, but the fact that they still have friends means that they can live in hope for the future.
Country: Japan
Budget: £4,500,000
Length: 134mins
Filmography
Battle Royale (Batoru rowaiaru), 2000, Kinji Fukasaku, Toei Company
Saving Private Ryan,1998, Steven Spielberg, Paramount Pictures
The Longest Day, 1962, Ken Annakin and Andrew Marton, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Pub/2008
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