Battle Royale II : Requiem

Three years after Fukasaku Kinji’s legendary Battle Royale, a film that attracted more than two million viewers in his own country alone, the surviving teenagers from Battle Royale again fight a battle for life and death. The world is dominated by terrorism. Nahara is the head of the Wild Seven. They are battling the state that uses the BR law to force difficult school students to kill each other. The adults accuse Nahara of destroying Tokyo. In the name of justice, they have adopted a new law: the Millennium Anti-terrorism Law, in other words BRII. This time, `chosen’ teenagers do not have to kill their classmates, but they are used to track down and kill Nahara. If they succeed, they win. If not, then they will die. When one of the teenagers refuses to take part, he is killed on the spot. And with him, his gaming partner dies too, connected to him with an electronic neck band. The rest of the class tackles the `war against terror’… When Fukasaku Kinji started on the sequel to Battle Royale (his sixtieth film) he knew he would have to fight a battle of a very different order; he had been diagnosed with cancer. Kinji died on 12 January 2003. His son Kenta, co-writer and producer of BRI and II, completed the film according to his father’s vision. Fukasaku Kinji’s last ‘battle’ has a clear message: adults fight wars, but it’s always the children who have to pay the price.