Battle Royale is a 2000 Japanese action film directed by Kinji Fukasaku from a screenplay by Kenta Fukasaku, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami. The film stars Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Tarō Yamamoto, Chiaki Kuriyama, Kou Shibasaki, Masanobu Andō, and Beat Takeshi. It follows a group of junior-high-school students forced to fight to the death by a Japanese totalitarian government.
Theatrical release poster
Kinji Fukasaku was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. Known for his "broad range and innovative filmmaking", Fukasaku worked in many different genres and styles, but was best known for his gritty yakuza films, typified by the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series (1973–1976). According to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, "his turbulent energy and at times extreme violence express a cynical critique of social conditions and genuine sympathy for those left out of Japan's postwar prosperity." He used a cinema verite-inspired shaky camera technique in many of his films from the early 1970s.
Kinji Fukasaku