"Three years after the events in "Battle Royale," Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara)is a well-known terrorist bent on bringing down the government. In response, they order the creation of the "Battle Royale 2" program, and send a class of junior-high students to catch and kill him."
From this review it sounds as if almost everything great about the first movie has been ignored and original-to-film continuity has been shrugged at. And the premise seems pretty ludicrous.
― nate detritus (natedetritus), Friday, 26 December 2003 00:30 (twenty-one years ago)
Whoops, meant original-to-sequel continuity
― nate detritus (natedetritus), Friday, 26 December 2003 03:26 (twenty-one years ago)
― TEH ONE AN ONLEY DEANN GULBAREY (deangulberry), Friday, 26 December 2003 09:13 (twenty-one years ago)
― Lynskey (Lynskey), Sunday, 4 January 2004 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)
The only shred of wit remaining from the first (SPOILER AHOY) is during the initial isalnd assault. The mass slaughter and subsequent lengthy dead list is quite funny in a way, almost as if Fukasaka is acknowledging the shock and impact of the first. The rest of the film is a tedious and lengthy firefight, punctuated by the sort of twelfth-rate "radical" philosophising which is the PRIME REASON I suspect that the government wants all teenagers dead, and frankly I can't blame them. (ANOTHER SPOILER AHOY) When Nanahara held aloft an AK-47 and proclaimed it the symbol of freedom fighters the world over I nearly chewed my own cheek out in disbelief.
In short, it's rubbish, but you'd still do the girls.
― Matt (Matt), Monday, 5 January 2004 07:45 (twenty-one years ago)
Nice opening with the collapsing skyline shame about the rest of the movie, some nice camera work, silly symbolism. Had a slightly dodgy fansub srt file so not sure about the dialogue.
Fairly nasty violence but nowhere near as nasty as the 1st. Its only kid verus kid until they (the TERRARISTS) notice the neck collars.
Gun symbolism was a bit blunt, the BR2 kids were given generic european looking rifles, the terrorists used the AK47s (as pointed out by the movie like a million times) but the BR guards used American weapons, M16s.
And a nice happy ending in Afghanistan???? WTF.
This country needs explosive neck collars at schools NOW.
― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Monday, 5 January 2004 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)
― Lynskey (Lynskey), Monday, 5 January 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)
― Matt (Matt), Monday, 5 January 2004 16:24 (twenty-one years ago)
― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 10:05 (twenty-one years ago)
― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Wednesday, 11 February 2004 12:19 (twenty-one years ago)
It was so dull, even the violence didn't have a tenth of the invention of the first film (all guns or exploding collars, one guy got spiked on a pole, but nothing as gruesome or, let's be honest, cool as the first film), no character development = couldn't give a shit if any of them died. Pointless and horrible. I couldn't wait for it to finish but it seemed to drag on forever.
― ailsa (ailsa), Saturday, 4 September 2004 22:44 (twenty years ago)
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 5 September 2004 16:49 (twenty years ago)
― ailsa (ailsa), Sunday, 5 September 2004 18:35 (twenty years ago)