I'll get the ball rolling with my favourite Asian film (taken from a review I wrote a few years ago):

Battle Royale

(2000)

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku


Main Cast Beat Takeshi Kitano

Tatsuya Fujiwara

Aki Maeda

Taro Yamamoto

Masanobu Ando

Chiaki Kuriyama

Kou Shibasaki

Could you kill your best friend?

In 1999, a controversial Japanese novel was published penned by former news journalist Koushun Takami, which presented this very idea. The novel Battle Royale (based on the concept of a pro wrestling match where a number of wrestlers are in the ring at the same time and its every man for himself) became a cult hit at first but its notoriety soon meant it received far greater attention and was soon a huge bestseller.

One year later, legendary film director Kinji Fukasaku took on the task of transferring this explosive novel to the big screen. Fukasaku, noted for his Yakuza trilogy Without Honour And Humanity and successful entries into the genre of film noir was probably best suited to interpret such an idea as Battle Royale for the cinema, with his work cited as an influence by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and John Woo.

The film opens with this outline:

"At the dawn of the Millennium, the nation collapsed. At 15% unemployment, 10 million were out of work, 800,000 students boycotted school. The adults lost confidence, and fearing the youth, eventually passed the 'Millennium Educational Reform Act'...AKA: The BR Act."

Indeed the youth of Japan are revolting against the system, with both verbal and physical attacks on their teachers. Downtrodden teacher Kitano (Takeshi Kitano) enters a classroom to find a message scrawled on the blackboard: Takin the day off cause we want to Class B. A few moments later his is attacked in the hallway by an angry student who stabs him in the leg. Kitano quit teaching as a result of this incident.

We are also introduced to one of the male students Shuya Nanahara (Fujiwara), a troubled young boy whos mother left him at aged three then he returned home on his first day of the new school term to find his unemployed father had committed suicide. With no-one else to turn to, Nanahara finds solace and comfort with his school friends, most notably his best friend Nobu and the girl Nanahara has a secret crush on Noriko Nakagawa (Maeda), who in turn secretly fancies Nobu. Of course, this comfort zone of Nanahara is soon to disappear

Class B are abducted whilst out on a field trip. They are rendered unconscious by knockout gas and when they awaken, they find themselves in a dark classroom in an undisclosed location. The sudden arrival of their former teacher a very bitter Kitano flanked by a group of fully armed soldiers brings the students the explanation they desired.

Kitano explains that each year a class is picked at random and sent the remote location where the become part of a game called Battle Royale. The rules are simple: they will all be let loose on the remote island they have been transported to, and have three days to fight each other to the death. The last person standing is the winner and will be set free. In a beautifully satirical moment, the instruction video that explains everything to the students is done in a bright, glitzy MTV style presentation with a perky young female hosting the programme. With a big grin on her face, she proceeds to inform the students that they will have a back pack containing a map, basic provisions and a weapon, which may be either useful (like a gun or a knife) or worthless (like a tin tray).

The students also told that they are wearing electronic necklaces around their necks, which reads their pulse rates, thus sending out signals to the control centre, so Kitano can keep track of everyones whereabouts. Should a student try to remove the necklace they will be detonated. An angry Nobu puts this to the test so Kitano detonates his necklace. If there are no winners at the end of three days, the necklaces will automatically detonate wiping all the remaining students out.

As if that wasnt enough, every hour, certain parts of the island will be designated a danger zone. Should any student be in this area at that time, their necklaces will be automatically detonated. These will be announced whenever Kitano makes his quarterly updates to the students via the tannoy systems scattered around the island.

Finally, to spice the game up a little, two transfer students have been added to the game: Shougo Kawada (Yamamoto) who was the winner of a previous Battle Royale game and Kazuo Kiriyama (Ando), who is there for the fun of it.

The students are the released out into the main island and the fight for survival begins

Despite the disturbing premise of this film, the story it tells is very deep and emotional, as it explores the differing feelings of the students and how they handle the game. Some enter into the spirit of the game out of pure paranoia and fear of being killed, whilst others relish the idea. Some try to avoid any sort of conflict but soon end up at each others throats. One young couple so afraid to die took their lives on the first night.

Others try to continue to exist as normally as possible, like sprinter Takako Chigusa (Kuriyama - later of Kill Bill fame) who insist son continuing with her running training but end up fighting for her life against the advances of an amorous male student. We are also treated to the exploits of class bitch Mitsuko Souma (Kou Shibasaki) who manipulates her way though the game using her bullying tactics on the weaker girls and her feminine guile of the boys.

Some of the students manage to outsmart Kitanos crew by hacking into the computer systems but their big plans are thwarted by the psychotic Kiriyama, who - as the films cool anti-hero manages to destroy almost all hope of a peaceful survival for the other students.

The main focus is on Nanahara and Noriko as they stick together, forging a friendship with Kawada who helps them during the game. This leads us to a very interesting conclusion to the game.

Battle Royale is a well paced, violent, visceral film where the violence doesnt once come across as gratuitous, due to the emotional aspect of the students in their quest for survival whilst being pitted against both friend and foe. Kinji Fukasaku stuck almost faithfully to the original novel bar a few changes when interpreting it for the big screen which is rare for most cinematic adaptations. However, whereas the novel had a slightly more political bent to some of the students angry reactions to being put in the game and to the system they were rebelling against in the first place, Fukasaku decided to focus on the emotional reactions of the students. To that end, we have a very thought provoking and intelligent film that appeals to the viewer on so many levels.

The performances in this film are sublime. The legendary Beat Takeshi Kitano effortlessly steals the show as the bitter and emotionless teacher Kitano, managing to bring a detached menace to his character, whilst at the same time the pathos shines through. Credit must also go to the younger actors, specifically Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda as Nanahara and Noriko. Unlike in Hollywood where they usually cast 21 year olds to play teenagers, the junior cast of Battle Royale were all in their early teens (in fact, Maeda celebrated her 15th birthday during filming) here, yet that all managed to give performance way beyond their years whilst maintaining every aspect of their obvious youth.

A sequel, Battle Royale II Requiem, was released in 2003 but Kinji Fukasaku died during filming so his son Kenta, who also wrote the script and screenplay, took over the directorial duties. But the film failed to recreate the magic of its predecessor. This was mostly due to it lacking the vision and direction of the original novel, and the character development of the first film.

Battle Royale is a film that rightfully deserves its cult status yet also deserved far greater mainstream recognition if only for the questions it raises about the future of todays youth and the future of society in general, without pulling any punches.