- dir. KINJI FUKASAKU
- year. 2000
- country. JAPAN
- run-time. 2hr 2min
- rating. 18
£5.00 (£3.50 conc.)
Doors - 19:00 Film - 19:30
Deptford Cinema in alliance with Arrow Films present: Arrow Video Club! Arrow Video Club seasons will showcase cutting edge movies from across a dizzying range of genres, nations and eras: westerns, gangster films, new arthouse hits, digitally restored classics, and a few forgotten gems. All films will come from the catalogue of one of the most prestigious British film labels!
Directed by the master of 70s Yakuza thrillers Kinji Fukasaku, and featuring Kill Bill star Chiaki Kuriyama, Battle Royale is a milestone in the history of extreme Asian cinema in the 21st Century, a film which broke out beyond far its national borders. Even the recent YA hit franchise The Hunger Games seems to owe a debt to it.
In a world where teenagers have no respect and adults are losing control, there can be only one solution: Battle Royale! In a dystopian future, the Japanese government has hit upon a brutally simple concept to keep society in line and allow a cowed populace a chance to get kick out of it in the process: let a high school class loose on an island, arm them and then give them a simple choice… kill your friends or be killed instead. Your weapons: poison, cross-bows, machetes, dynamite, even your own body. ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano (Violent Cop, Zatoichi) stars as a teacher pushed to the edge, with his pupils merely the latest in a long line of kids thrown into the meat grinder. This twisted, ultra-violent thriller really does have it all.