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Battle Royale 'DC' : Special Edition DVD

The new edit of this classic movie is a strange beast. Nothing is added to really change the overall quality that much, but the slight changes certainly add to the films dramatic pull. (Original version reviewed here)

The film has also undergone an extensive technical make over.
We start with a new, bombastic credit sequence, with the explanation text now zooming in and then out of the screen in full sentences not single words like the original. The swirling "BR" sign is has also been polished. It's a much more powerful opening.

We then go to the first real change in the film...with the lead boy Nanahara now doing a voice over (with a bit of the new basketball match footage) that gives us a nice link to the original edits finale voice over. It also mentions Kitano more...setting the character up for his reappearance. An extra shot of Beat Takashi at a sink swabbing the blood from the knife wound is added as his character is mentioned.

We are now missing a few frames on the bus trip of the children messing around, probably for pacing.

Next change is a new shot of Kitano arriving.

We then have a technical change. New sound effects have been added to the knife thrown into the girls' head. A swift whooshing sound and a base thud adds to the violence. A CGI edit removes the mistake of Kitano removing the knife from the girl's facial area in the original and moves it up, correctly, to her forehead. A grizzly addition is the lifting of her head as the knife is removed.

Next CGI edit is on the bracelet explosion...more blood is added to Noda's shirt, seeping into the material.

Other CGI blood effects are added...most noticeable is the added splatter to the demise of the girl on the megaphone who is sadistically killed by Kiriyama.
Various other bullet hits are added...some more effective than others. Some look overly CGI, but this may be because the 'Special Effects Comparison' on the DVD highlights them.
The best new gore addition is on the death of Kiriyama...who goes out in a nicely splattery fashion with a new, bigger, spurting neck wound.

The biggest 'plot' addition is the basketball game...various bits of this are shown throughout the film, highlighting certain characters when they appear. It gives the less covered roles a nice bit of extra 'life'. We can feel for them more seeing them with their classmates in happier times.
The biggest use of the basketball footage is in the 'dream' that Nanahara has off Noda, who catches a bouncing ball and asks him to promise to look after Noriko. Noda's character is given a bigger role in the life of Nanahara by this sequence.

The most interesting addition, and one of the most powerful is the flashback to Mitsuko's childhood (the most cold-blooded girl with the sickle knife). It shows her as a very young girl coming home to find her Mother drunk with some money strewn over the table and a perverted man wanting to 'play' with Mitsuko, and it's clear her Mother has 'pimped' her Daughter to the man. She runs upstairs and the man follows, undressing a small doll and asking her to do the same. In feat she pushes the man, knocking him downstairs, breaking his neck. It's a vital, distressing bit of footage that in a few moments gives Mitsuko a moving history. And Kou Shibasaki, it has to be stated, as well as being a striking young lady, is remarkable in this role...something I missed out in my initial review. Watch out for her as she should go on to do some good work as she gets older.

The next biggest change is the ending. Actually the main finale is exactly the same as the original edit. The difference is 3 added 'Requiems' after it.

Subtitled as they appear, the first and most poignant is more of the basketball match. To see the children...now all dead except for 2, is moving. It's not subtle by any means...but it works. To see them play and work together as a team, knowing what will happen is powerful stuff. The added shot of Mitsuko being left out of the victory celebrations is, of course, a sadly ironic fore telling of what is to come, and also shows how even in this coming together...some are not part of it.
The 2nd Requiem is simply another playing of the Noda basketball dream.
The 3rd is a conversation between Kitano and Noriko (A SEQUENCE THAT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ORIGINAL EDIT), where the feelings Kitano has for her are made explicit. She's the Daughter that he has not got...his real Daughter hates and ridicules him and in Noriko he sees what he could have had. The adding of the first 'requiem' works, and is valid...the 2nd seems pointless and the 3rd is successful, but if you have seen the original cut, you know this conversation anyway.
So why the 'Requiems'?
Well, the first (which should have been the last), does add emotional weight and all of them somehow make the finale deeper...it adds to the melancholy of the finale (rather than the more 'Manga' ending of the phrase "RUN" in the original) and quite rightly brings you back to the characters who did not survive. Perhaps it shouldn't work...but it does.

So a great movie is given added emotion (even if some of it is simplistic) that actually works and makes for a more sober and reflective movie than was originally envisioned.

If you already have this on a nice looking and sounding (the 5:1 mix is outstanding) and are not bothered by the excellent extras, you MAY need to think before purchase (I only had a VHS bootleg...so this DVD is essential to me anyway), but anyone else, who has not got this on DVD yet should not even think twice.
This is a must have.