A Battle Royale with Cheese

Let's face it. Sequels of really good films are more often than not complete wastes of time. "But what about Godfather II", you cry. "That was as good as, if not better than, the first one." Fair enough, but along came Godfather III to undo all of that. Look at Wings of Desire (a masterpiece) and Faraway, So Close (a nightmare). We could do this all night. Filmbrain really liked the original Battle Royale. Kinji Fukasaku, in the twilight of his life, gave us this deeply disturbing, unsettling film (his 61st) about children who are forced by government decree to kill each other in order to survive. It's quite a political film, and Fukasaku is extremely critical of contemporary Japan, with their knee-jerk reaction of blaming "the kids" for almost every national problem. That Fukasaku injects a fair amount of dark humor into the proceedings simply adds to the discomfort level. Takeshi Kitano, in one of his best roles ever, manages to play both horrific and sympathetic as the children's teacher and overseer of the game. Though the film never had an official US release, it has found quite a following on DVD. The novel on which the film is based has been translated into English, and is well worth reading. When Filmbrain first heard that Fukasaku was planning a sequel, he worried a bit. What was the point? Where could they possibly take the story that was interesting enough to warrant a sequel? Then Fukasaku died, and the project was taken over by his son, Kenta. Though there's no way of knowing the father/son breakdown of the finished product, the end result (Battle Royale II: Requiem) is a glorious mess. First off, it's a sequel in name only. Sure, our hero Shuya Nanahara (Tatsuya Fujiwara) is back, but this time he's a full-blown "terrorist", looking like a lost member of Van Halen. There is indeed another Battle Royale, but the rules are very different, and it has very little to do with the story. The overlong storming the beach scene (lifted right out of Saving Private Ryan, right down to the camera techniques) has so much bloodshed, that by its end there are only a small handful of kids left. Whereas the first film spent a fair amount of time on the back-story of many of the kids, thereby giving some meaning to their deaths, here most of them are dead within minutes -- some without even uttering a line of dialog. The teacher this time is played by Riki Takeuchi, and his performance is so badly overacted it made William Shatner blush. (His exit from the film is an unintentionally hilarious scene that has to be seen to be believed.) With the game out of the way, the film turns its sights on things even more political -- namely terrorism, and a polemic against America's history of attacking other nations. The controversial opening, which has a pair of twin towers crumbling to the ground in Tokyo, provides a hint as to the tone of the film. [The following could be considered spoilers, but honestly, there's not much to spoil.] Nanahara is now the head of a terrorist organization called Wild Seven that has declared war on all adults. It was his organization that brought down the Tokyo towers, and now he and his team of pint-sized terrorists are holed up on an island. The Battle Royale kids are assigned to kill him, but naturally they convert to his side. In the three years since the first Battle Royale, Nanahara has been traveling the world, spending a lot of time in countries that America has attacked over the years. What he witnesses is that even in the worst of conditions, kids are still kids. They are life, joy, the future of the nation, etc. From his island hideout, he somehow manages to make an illegal worldwide TV broadcast where he first runs us through a list of countries that America has bombed, followed by a call to rise-up against America for their actions. Shortly after the broadcast, the Americans begin launching missiles at the island -- some type of new, quick, pre-emptive response to any terrorist threat. (In all fairness, America is never mentioned by name, but it takes nary a sixth grade education to figure out to whom they are referring.) From here on out the film is an endless battle that quickly turns very dull, followed by a brief epilogue in Afghanistan that is just pure cheese. Filmbrain was not bothered, incensed, nor insulted by the anti-American (and quasi pro-terrorist) stance of the film. It's not intelligent enough to be offensive, and the numerous holes in the screenplay preclude any chance of a sensible plot. (When the children in Nanahara's army grow up to be adults, do they automatically become the enemy?) A well thought out and executed film that takes America to task for some of its foreign policy decisions would have been welcomed, especially coming from Fukasaku pere. Instead, we have Battle Royale II: Requiem -- a two-hour video game that reminded Filmbrain of another really bad sequel -- Aliens.