119 - Battle Royale Review

Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル, Batoru Rowaiaru) is a 2000 Japanese action-thriller film directed by Kinji Fukasaku, with a screenplay written by Kenta Fukasaku, based on the 1999 novel by Koushun Takami. Starring Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Tarō Yamamoto, and Takeshi Kitano, the film follows a group of junior high-school students that are forced to fight to the death by the Japanese totalitarian government. The film drew controversy, and was banned or excluded from distribution in several countries. Toei even refused to sell the film to any United States distributor for a long time due to concerns about potential controversy and lawsuits (until Anchor Bay Entertainment eventually acquired the film in 2010 for direct-to-video release).