Batoru rowaiaru II: Chinkonka (2003)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Directors:

Kenta Fukasaku
Kinji Fukasaku

Writers:

Kenta Fukasaku (writer)
Norio Kida (writer)

Release Date:

5 July 2003 (Japan)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

This time it's war.

Plot:

Three years after the failure of the last BR program, a second act is forged and a class of students are sent to an island with one objective: kill international terrorist Shuya Nanahara.

Plot Keywords:

Terrorist | Island | Self Sacrifice | Dystopia | Returning Character Killed Off

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Tatsuya Fujiwara	...	Shuya Nanahara
Ai Maeda	...	Shiori Kitano (Transfer Student)
Shûgo Oshinari	...	Takuma Aoi
Ayana Sakai	...	Nao Asakura
Haruka Suenaga	...	Haruka Kuze
Yuma Ishigaki	...	Mitsugu Sakai
Miyuki Kanbe	...	Kyoko Kakei
Masaya Kikawada	...	Shintaro Makimura
Yoko Maki	...	Maki Souda
Yuki Ito	...	Ryo Kurosawa
Natsuki Kato	...	Saki Sakurai
Aki Maeda	...	Noriko Nakagawa
Riki Takeuchi	...	Riki Takeuchi (Sensei)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Aja	...	Kazumi Fukuda
Munetaka Aoki	...	Jun Nanami
Riasu Arama	...	Rena Niimi
Sonny Chiba	...	Makio Mimura (Shinji's revolutionary uncle)
Seiichi Ebina	...	Tatsuro Morishima
Ryoji Fujihira	...	Masami Shibaki
Maki Hamada	...	Chizuru
Ayumi Hanada	...	Ryoko Hata
Kenji Harada	...	Naoki Jo
Hitomi Hasebe	...	Asuka Motomura
Takaaki Ikeyama	...	Yasuaki Hosaka
Asuka Ishii	...	Maho Nosaka
Hiroaki Ito	...	Soldier
Ai Iwamura	...	Mai (Smiling Winner from BR1)
Kotaru Kamijou	...	Kenji Maezono
Minami Kanazawa	...	Yuko Natsukawa
Ryo Katsuji	...	Haruya Sakurai
Asami Katsura	...	Risa Shindo
Mika Kikuchi	...	Ayane Yagi
Takeshi Kitano	...	Kitano (as Beat Takeshi)
Musashi Kubota	...	Wataru Mukai
Miku Kuga	...	Kengo Yonai
Maika Matsumoto	...	Shiho Matsuki
Michiho Matsumoto	...	Sanae Shioda
Yoshiko Mita	...	Takuma's mother
Chisato Miyao	...	Hibiki Yano
Akane Mizuno	...	Sayaka
Yuuko Morimoto	...	Kana Yûki
Aiko Moriuchi	...	Miki Ikeda
Mitsuru Murata	...	Soji Kazama
Ami Nakagawa	...	Honami Totsuka
Kayo Nayuki	...	Eri Yoshiyama
Yûya Nishikawa	...	Nishi
Kenji Ohba	...	Mimura's Comrade
Nanami Oota	...	Hitoe Takeuchi
Yuka Ozawa	...	Shinobu
Gou Ryugawa	...	Lieutenant Anjo
Rika Sakagushi	...	Yuka Mifune
Mai Sakamoto	...	Shoko
Makoto Sakamoto	...	Osamu Kasai
Mikiya Sanada	...	ATAT soldier
Shoko Sato	...	Nozomi Sagisawa
Takeru Shibaki	...	Shugo Urabe
Mitsuki Shimada	...	'Wild Seven' Member
Sae Shimizu	...	Ai Yazawa
Hikaru Takahashi	...	ATAT soldier
Kei Tamura	...	Tatsuhiko Hasegawa
Takeshi Tanaka	...	Masakatsu Taguchi
Takashi Taniguchi	...	Leader of the Anti-Terrorist Attack Team
Masumi Tooyoka	...	Yukari
Toshiyuki Toyonaga	...	Shota Hikasa
Masahiko Tsugawa	...	The Prime Minister
Haruka Umeda	...	Aya
Toshihiro Wada	...	Satoshi Imakire (as Toshihiro Wada)
Kouta Yamada	...	Tetsuya Shimura
Kazuki Yamamoto	...	Yosuke Miyadai
Michiko Yamamura	...	Reporter
Nana Yanagisawa	...	Mayu Hasuda
Takahiko Yanagisawa	...	Shiro
Kazutoshi Yokoyama	...	ATAT soldier
Yasutake Yuboku	...	Kiyoshi Minamoto
Takashi Yukawa	...	'Wild Seven' Member
Yuuma	...	Yuuma

Also Known As:

Batoru rowaiaru II: Rekuiemu (Japan) (alternative title)
Battle Royale 2: Revenge (UK) (DVD title)
Battle Royale II (USA)
Battle Royale II: Requiem (literal English title)

Runtime:

Japan:134 min | Japan:155 min (director's cut)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Hong Kong:III | Australia:R | Germany:18 (JK/SPIO) | Japan:R-15 | New Zealand:R18 | South Korea:15 | UK:18 | Finland:K-18 | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Nishisinoki-gun, Nagasaki, Japan

Company:

Fukasaku-gumi

Trivia:

"Jacta Alea Est", Wild Seven's slogan, is Latin for "The Dice is Cast".

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Shuya impales a commando with a pipe, the strap holding the pipe in place is visible, when he turns towards the camera

Quotes:

Shiori Kitano: The thing people fear most isn't dying, it's being forgotten.

Movie Connections:

References The Terminator (1984)

An attempt at being meaningful...but falls flat...

I watched Battle Royale a week before its sequel, and the effects the first had on me were still with me. I feel I tend to notice detail more than some people, but I know I look for it. While Battle Royale's premise was unusual, it was a great story. To imagine you and your friends dropped into a game where you had to kill each other...to see how the students were either so willing to kill, or else strive for union, or else just accept death-it was a wonderful story, with enough of all genres to keep me interested and also moved by it. Kitano was the perfect villain...human but vengeful. To see a sadistic person with so much depth, just walking around in a track suit. It was a beautiful movie with characters you cared about.

But, this is not a review of Battle Royale, but its inferior sequel. Now, once I read the premise, I knew it wouldn't be as good as its predecessor. But I wanted to see it nonetheless. First, its good to see the writer cares about recycling, because he certainly did that. We are treated a second time around to the students herded into a room and confronted by their ex-teacher. We get to see yet another trio of friends broken up when one is killed, and the others vow revenge. This time, instead of a bloody photograph to haunt the hero, it's a bloody football. From here, the story is different, but this is where it really loses its footing.

The movie makes no sense: why not just bomb the island if they're so worried about Shuya and his terrorist group? And, why make it impossible for the students to kill Shuya by keeping danger zones, and making so that when one person dies, their partner has to? Obviously the "teacher" did not care much about them accomplishing their mission, but did want to make the "game" move faster by having two people die at a time.

Then, we're treated to 45 minutes of bore, where the movie tries to get across a strong message concerning terrorism and peace. Now, I do not get bored easily. I love character development and scenes where the music just carries you along while you get to feel what the characters are feeling. But this was just falling flat in its message. And it was redundant. Every time they said something, it was a rehashing of some point already made. None of the characters were interesting. Even Shuya had become some kind of monk. And the teacher, Riki, was the stereotypical American villain. Donning a black cloak, evil laugh, and threatening one-liners. But, he was boring. Nothing like the human Kitano we got to see in the original.

Not much else to say. If they could just take the few sequences with Kitano out and insert them into Battle Royale, then we'd have no reason to watch this sequel. Maybe they should consider this...