Battle Royale - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Battle Royale or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Battle Royale

[tom]

The director offered the role of Yoshitoki Kuninobu to popular rock vocalist 'Kyô' (from Dir en Grey), but Kyo's management forbade him to take it.

[stephanie]

10 years after its release, the film was reformatted for 3D.

[nicholas]

Contrary to popular belief, this film was never banned in the United States. There are however, several conflicting, if plausible explanations as to why it wasn't initially released: Toei refused to license the movie for North American distribution and rejected offers from several American companies.Toei's licensing fee was unusually high for this kind of film, so smaller independent distributors could not afford it and larger distributors that could refused to pay.After the Columbine High School shootings (April 20, 1999), no distributor was willing to pick the film up, due to the plot line involving high school students killing each other.

[gerald]

Nishimura Gouki, who played Oki, the student who was axed on the head, kept the cast entertained between breaks by bringing his own rock band. He played bass guitar and sang lead vocal, and he and his band would give live performances to the cast and crew.

[darrell]

Although the film played sporadically in the US festival circuit after its release, most American audiences became familiar with it through bootleg or "region-free" international copies. In 2011, American home video distributor Anchor Bay managed to come to a licensing agreement with Toei, and the film began streaming on the American video rental service Netflix. Later that year, Battle Royale had its first general North American theatrical run at the Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles, CA, on December 24, 11 years after its Japanese theatrical release. On March 20, 2012, Anchor Bay gave the film and its sequel, Battle Royale II (2003), their first official DVD/Blu-ray release in the US.

[oscar]

The characters from the anime/manga series Slam Dunk (1993) appear as icons used by the hackers.

[kyle]

In the film, Kawada and Kiriyama are transfer students; in the novel, only Kawada was the transfer student. Kiriyama was part of the class and actually leader of a gang.

[riley]

Some scenes which took place at night were actually shot during daytime, like the part when Shuya, Noriko, and Kawada were attacked by Kiriyama, it was broad daylight when they filmed it, and it was tinted during production to make it look darker than it actually was.

[duane]

The movie is banned in South Korea TV due to graphic violence scenes.

[mathew]

The magazine containing bomb-making instructions that is used by Shinji Mimura and his gang is titled "Hara Hara Tokei" ("The Ticking Clock"). This magazine is a real bomb-making magazine published by an anti-Japanese-Government activist group called Higashi Ajia Hannichi Buso Sensen (East Asia Anti-Japanese Armed Front) from the 1970s.

[riley]

Six months were spent in pre-production on script readings and physical tests with the cast.

[duane]

In April 2013, seven years after the film was put on the index for youth-endangering media, the film was confiscated by the local court of Fulda, Hesse, Germany. This meant that no one in Germany was allowed to sell the movie and all copies were to be confiscated by the Police. Capelight, the German licensee, appealed the ruling and in October 2013 the court revoked its ruling. As of February 2017, the movie is no longer confiscated nor on the index. An uncut release somewhere in April 2017 is planed by the publisher.

[amber]

The painting of all the students was created by Beat Takeshi Kitano.

[caroline]

Although this movie is filled with lots of shooting rampages, only two cast members in two scenes were shot using squibs (small fake blood packs to simulate bullet piercing): Takayo Mimura, who played Kayoko Kotohiki, and Takeshi Kitano, who played Kitano-sensei.

[oscar]

Director Kinji Fukasaku celebrated his 70th birthday during the film's production. He would pass away two years later during the production of the sequel, Battle Royale II (2003), thus ending a 40 year career in the director's chair.

[lonnie]

Weapons provided include: Uzi submachine guns, handguns, kama (the scythe-like weapon), Spas 12 shotgun, nunchaku, taser, knife, handgrenade, hand axe, crossbow, wakizashi (a sword), potassium cyanide (poison). Non-weapons provided include: megaphone, electronic collar tracer, paper fan, saucepan lid, binocular & a bullet proof vest

[jamie]

One of Quentin Tarantino's favorite movies.

[steve]

Mitsuko Souma (Girl #11), Satomi Noda (Girl #17), Yoshio Akamatsu (Boy #1), Toshinori Oda (Boy #4), Hiroki Sugimura (Boy #11), Yutaka Seto (Boy #12), and Shinji Mimura (Boy #19) are the only characters to have the same designated weapon in the novel, manga, and film of Battle Royale.

[albert]

The computer-code listing shown on the laptop during the hacking scenes is from Fyodor's Nmap, a popular network auditing-hacking tool.