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Battle Royale 2: Requiem (2003)

Dir: Kenta Fukasaku
Kinji Fukasaku

The two survivors from "Battle Royale", Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko Nakagawa (Aki Maeda) go into hiding. Nanahara resurfaces as the head of a child terrorist group called 'Wild Seven'. Following a devastating attack that destroys many tower blocks and skyscrapers (a very impressive, if horrific, visual) 'Wild Seven' hole up on an island fortress and declare war on all adults.

A coach load of children, from a school for difficult students, are kidnapped and forced to work for the Government who refuse to play Nanahara's game. They will not use their own troops to fight him, but instead send other children to take him out.
Included in them is Shiori Kitano (Ai Maeda), the young Daughter of Takeshi Kitano (the Teacher of Nanahara's class who ran the first "BR" 'game' and who was later killed by Nanhara and Noriko).

They have exploding necklaces attached to them and are split into groups of two. If anyone in these pairings dies the necklace of the survivor will activate and kill them also.
If your partner gets more than 50 meters away then both necklaces will activate, and if you are in a 'danger zone' the necklaces will explode.

On top of all this they are given only 3 days to kill Nanahara or all the necklaces will explode. Those that refuse will be (and are in the films powerful opening bit of bloodshed) killed.

Having no choice the children are equipped and sent off to the island via motor boats. As they approach they come under heavy fire and the confused and terrified children are flung into a war where nothing is black and white and death seems the only certainty….

When Kinji Fukasaku, the Director of the original "Battle Royale", died a few weeks into this films shooting, his Son, Kenta Fukasku (who also wrote the first films adapted screenplay) took over.
Kinji certainly put the young actors through many rehearsals and prepared much of the film, but the big faults this much-anticipated sequel has have been mainly blamed on Kenta. Whatever the truth, the disappointing outcome is the same. And the script (indeed by Kenta Fukasaku) is the real problem this movie has from the outset.

As 'Wild Seven' are on an island...why not just blow it to pieces?
A plot twist later on makes you wonder why they were fighting it out to the death on the seemingly cut off island in the first place.
Why send a group of children (the fact that the adults won't take on Nanahara and instead send children, just like himself, is actually a well scripted bit of arrogance and cruelty. But from the practical standpoint of destroying 'Wild Seven' it's ridiculous) and not trained soldiers?
Why send them to destroy 'Wild Seven' and yet have them put at a major disadvantage with 'Danger Zones' (one of the messy points of the original film as well) and exploding necklace 'one dies you both die'/'50 meters away' rules?

These are huge and damaging holes in the story.
Far more hurtful than the 'why is the "BR" game/law unknown to the kids when it's covered on TV' plot discrepancy from the first film (incidentally the same grinning young girl survivor from that first films news report is actually one of the 'Wild Seven', complete with the same grin and doll).

If this film was in any way logical…Nanahara and co would be dead before the main story line of the film even opens.

So much for the plot hole blasted story then….

The first "Battle Royale", be it the original cut or the 'Directors Cut' managed to pull off a very difficult feat. It gave you are full on, fast moving, ultra violent, bloody action film and yet gave you characters you cared for and got to know. It carefully edited in the background to the main children, via flashbacks, during the main 'action' body of the film. Thus making for a plot that never got bogged down in a lengthy 'character' opening. From the start it ripped off the screen, went straight into the main plot and action, yet still carried with it much welcome, powerful and very Human emotions.

Sadly, for the most part, the sequel fails to pull this tricky manoeuvre off. The children are basically faceless and are given no background or relationship back-story nor in film dialogue to suggest who they are or how as individuals they are connected. As they are shot and blown up during the opening assault on the island,it's clear they are but splatter fodder.

Almost knowing they had too many children to follow the film makers proceed to wipe half of them out simply to supply some CGI blood sprays. As the bodies continue to fall only the shouted names of the dead and the dying by their fellow classmates hint at the fact they even know each other.
And the few characters that do stand out are killed off. Leaving a lot of nameless children whom all basically look the same. It was certainly a mistake to kill off the characters with crazy hairstyles, as at least then you have some kind of identifying visual for them.
There is also way too much reliance of cliché 'dying breathe' speeches that are more cringing than anything else and far less powerful than the brief speeches in "BR1".

As the numbers dwindle though, we would surely be given a chance to get to know and understand the survivors. But even down to the paltry number of 10…we can only recognise three or so, let alone have any emotional ties with them. The fact that the children are wearing combat gear also takes away the shock value "BR1" had of the children killing, and being killed, dressed in school uniform.
And we have not even touched on the 'Wild Seven' terrorist children yet.

Here we suffer the same fate. Now given two groups to follow the film zips around between them failing to cover any of them with emotions we can grasp on to. There ARE relationships here, but gain we only grasp this as one is dying and tears are shed and names screamed out. Here we have the ultimate horror…children who kill, who fight and die as adults. Who have replaced toys with machine guns and play for war. And yet they are as faceless as the bodies blown to bits in the earlier boat assault.
Whether some of this has ended up on the cutting room floor is also open to debate. There seems to be links between characters, shown by dialogue between them, that we have just not seen in the film.
Paramount in this case is a deeming relationship between one of the 'necklaced' children and the (very attractive...it has to be said) terrortist 'Sniper' girl. He even calls her 'Sister'. Yet this comes completely out of the blue. We have been shown no relationship at all between them.

The few exceptions to the 'faceless' problem of the characters are the aforementioned Shiori Kitano, Takuma Aoi (one of the kidnapped children sent to kill Nanahara) and Shuya Nanahara himself. But in the case of Takuma and Shuya this is purely down to the former being given plenty of screen time and the latter being the joint main character in the first film.

Only in the case of Shiori do we really have a character built up to the degree seen in "Battle Royale 1".
The tiny Ai Maeda, looking far younger than her years, does a good job at portraying a character who has to face up to her past and in doing so change her future. One of the rare emotional successes is her flashback showing the loveless relationship with her late Father. It's a poignant moment and gives Shiori some genuine emotions. Ai Maeda also handles the action scenes well, toting her gun like a pro.

Takuma is pretty much a love/hate character. Sometimes Shûgo Oshinari does a solid job at portraying a young lad thrown into death and confusion, but too often he resorts to shouting and pulling his face into mad contortions that tend to try the patience.

Nanahara is the most difficult to get your head around. And either he's been badly written or Tatsuya Fujiwara has no real understanding of what his character is meant to be. Nanahara is at once a bore, a fanatic, a warrior, a leader, ruthless, emotional…Just all over the place basically. Maybe that IS reality. Maybe that is how any real life character in that position, with these beliefs would indeed be. But in a movie context these changes in personality mean the viewer ultimately loses grasp of the character and is never really sure what they should feel about him. And seeing as he is the heart of the film, that confusion is damaging indeed. Even his confused flashback to earlier events (featuring a pointless cameo by Sonny "The Streetfighter"/"Kill Bill" Chiba) fails to help matters.

The real problem with the acting here though rests squarely at the feet of sometime Takashi Miike actor Riki Takeuchi (who like Takeshi Kitano from "BR1" plays a character with the same name as himself). Takeuchi is like a living Anime character. All huge facial spasms consisting of much eye rolling, brow furrowing and mouth gymnastics. At one point he seems to have the entire contents of an aspirin bottle (we assume its aspirin he spends the film chewing anyway) spilling from his mouth as he turns to face the camera. Too much unsubtle Miike required acting has blown this guy's thespian fuses it seems. Only during an important flashback and the character's, bizarre but somehow acceptable, final scene does he really calm down and put any kind of real emotion into his role.

But given all that, this is not the truly dreadful movie some reviewers would have you think. As a ball out, bloody action flick it's fine, with staged, superbly handled by the young cast, exciting gun battles.

The blatant 'Saving Private Ryan' digital cinematography of many of the battle scenes (most noticeably during the very "Ryan" like beach assault) actually works here better than a lot of other films that have used it, and the details of the battles that are normally lost in this shaking, eye straining way of filming are carefully covered here.
The sets are also excellent. The large bombed out ruins on the island and the bewildering maze of corrugated iron and scaffolding fortifications and bullet torn brickwork is effective in building up the claustrophobic and almost rat like existence the children find themselves living.
And as these dark and dank corridors and graffiti sprayed battlements of trash become an inglorious, ramshackle tomb for dozens of children and soldiers a real sense of utter carnage and waste is built up.

The violence and the deaths are never glorified as such, but the over use of CGI for the bullet hits does add a video game visual to the action that goes against the real feeling of confused loss as the children fight and die. The few cases of 'real' blood shed are far more effective and have more impact. A pipe rammed through a body pours blood…a head empties it's contents against a wall. Real on set bloodshed that carries with it far more impact than the much more prevalent, throwaway CGI sprays that paint the air red.
The real lack of hand to hand combat and death, that was so effective in bringing the actual act of killing directly home to those involved in the first film, is sadly in short supply here. If the script itself never makes death superficial…the way the deaths are visualised too often does.

Mention of the script also brings us to the films biggest problem with its audience. The very act of covering terrorism. Nanahara (in the very controversial opening sequence of tower blocks being demolished that suspiciously concentrates mainly on two towers next to each other in an obvious 9/11 visual) may have had right on his side in his battle against adults, but his means are indefensible.

This act kills thousands indiscriminately including of course many children. The very real horror of this act is now very real indeed to anyone who experienced 9/11 by being there or on the TV. So how is the viewer ever to do anything but despise Nanahara? The adults in the film are the way they try to 'save' Nanahara from the viewer wanting him dead with no questions asked.
Be it the Army, the supposed trusted Teacher, the heartless media or the unseen salivating TV audience…Adults here are all bad. All nasty and murderous. How to make a terrorist not the focus of the audiences hate? Make the adults 'bad' on such a mammoth scale that even Nanahara seems less of an evil.
After all, the initial class kidnapped to fight are not terrorists. Kids on the wrong side of life maybe, but innocents none the less. So from the starts, just like in the first film, the adults have made the first real flesh and blood act of evil.

Is the film really supporting the actions of Nanhara and his 'Wild Seven'? It's really hard to tell. The horror and cruelty of his terrorism IS not hidden away. And even Nanahara is given numerous scenes where he has to face the consequences of his actions. And yet he is shown as a 'hero' and the ending (which smacks of being tagged on to perhaps keep the story alive for another sequel) also seems to back this attitude towards him up.
Any have seen this as a fault. And perhaps it is. And yet is this not the way with most of these fanatical figures? One moment they are like Bin Ladin himself; Allies, freedom fighters. Then the ruthless monster that will snuff out life for some twisted self-belief. The new enemy.
Good becomes evil, evil becomes good. And only the acts of mass murder they carry out stay the same.

America is also an open target here. It's name-checked during the briefing of the kidnapped children by Takeuchi as all the Countries it has bombed are read out. Later (at least in the English subtitles) it is cryptically, but obviously, being discussed. And to hear all the Counties read out does highlight just how much America has imposed itself on the World. And yet….Many of these conflicts were justified. Not all for sure, but sometimes direct action is the only way. And the right way, no matter how terrible.
And the fact that it is Japan taking the swipes is to say the least ironic. Japan will never get over the A Bombs dropped on it's soil. And many filmmakers (not all Japanese) will forever use this hideously unique attack to condemn America. Yet Japan is a country that in the same War brutally murdered, raped and experimented on hundreds of thousands of POW's and Chinese. It was itself using Germ Warfare on civilians and was as close to using Biological Weapons on the U.S as you can be without actually dropping them. And only luck, and just maybe the A-bombs, stopped that use. America is no Angel, but neither is Japan.

So to sum up we have an exciting, bloody, well made and, yes, sometimes emotionally involving movie that is very complex in it's take on terrorism and the way to face it and to understand it. And the fact that the film itself cannot fully explain or understand or portray any kind of closure around these events is perhaps a good thing.
But it's also a 'character' let down, with none of the true heartfelt emotional pull and power of the first film and none of it's effective relationships.
It's overblown, it's faceless and soulless for much of it's running time and has such huge plot holes (the first "BR" also had plot holes, but nothing as damaging as those seen here) that you literally have to suspend any kind of disbelief to not simply laugh at the film and turn it off.

So a disappointment for sure, but not the turkey too many people are trying to label it. Its well worth watching and even owning…Just don't expect it to be anywhere near the triumph the first film was.