Battle Royale 2001 Special Edition; The lost Write-Up

Battle Royale 2001

In the beginning:

Beat Takashi, 7th Grade teacher, gets knifed.

At the dawn of the millennium: The Nation collapsed!

800,00 students: Boycotted school!

Look, there she is: The winner is a girl!

Go, Shuya!

Now they have: Digital watches around their necks!

No! It’s Cliff Clavin’s shock collar!

Beat lands in a chopper!

Chigusa: Gogo Yubari!!!

Spoiler:

And then a girl whispers and Beat kills her with this really cool throwing knife right to the forehead while they kill the teacher* and then they have a training film** and all the boys are wearing western-cut suits but Shuya is Nobu’s friend whose dad hung himself after writing a pep talk on an entire roll of toilet paper who (Nobu) teaches him (Shuyu) to play guitar*** while they are in the same foster care and then comes back to the school trip after the nice girl asks him but is the first kid killed by his exploding necklace so Shuya takes over the nice girl he likes and tries to protect her but she gets a scratch on her arm and besides they only have a pot lid and a pair of binoculars for weapons and then the punkish transfer student kills a bunch of kids with a sub-machine gun and finds a revolver and keeps it and then finds nunchucks but throws them away and a couple of kids decide they don’t want to screw with Battle Royale and hang themselves when all of a sudden a girl who is reading somebody’s diary when another girl sneaks up on her**** and takes her taser then cuts her throat with a pruning hook when all of a sudden the sun comes up and Beat is on the P.A. with the morning announcements of the death count and the Danger Zones so the nice couple take out their map and figure where to go when a guy attacks them then all of a sudden he’s got a hatchet sticking out of his forehead and they try to figure out who killed him when up pops a guy with a pistol spouting equations and when he tries to shoot her here comes the other exchange student with a shotgun***** and it’s bye-bye for the pistolero then two girls on top of the mountain stand up screaming a call for peace which some want to respond to but they are heard by the exchange student with the sub-machine gun and that’s the end of them.

*Your teacher, Mr. Hayashida: Was very opposed to the selection of Class B!

**Now we have: A training film with a perky girl!

"Fight correctly!: With Energy!"

Crossbow Fu.

***He Taught me: Guitar.

Shotgun Fu. Pot Lid Fu.

Taser Fu. Some weird pruning tool Fu.

Blue Danube nice-tie-in to 2001: A Space Odyssey-Fu.

****I found a tampon in the toilet: fucking all those boys but you still had to steal my boyfriend.

*****My father’s a doctor: My father’s a chef.

They’re listening: A mic in the necklace!

Chigusa, also a track star!: Training at this time?!

I’ll never understand the meaning of the smile she left behind: I think it may mean foreshadowing.

Every inch of me will resist you!: I see why she was selected for Gogo!

God, can I say one more thing?: You look really cool!

More drawn-out death scenes than: A Bugs Bunny opera!

Sword Fu; Poison Fu; Stew Fu; Pistol Fu; Uzi Fu; Kitchen Fu; another Wild Bunch middle-school girl bloodbath.

Bulletproof-vest Fu.

Lighthouse Fu.

Always Dark and gloomy.

I’ve been in love with you for a long time.

Mitsuko, a four-year-old killer: That Barbie Doll shit don’t work on me.

Third Man Hacker Program Virus Invasion!!!

Boom goes the Droog: 3 left.

Winner: Boy #5???

Unit Still Photographer: Grandma Moses.

Fade out to: Zippo Fu!

Fade out to: “I’m glad I found a true friend!”

Fade out to: Middle School girl with a butterfly knife!

Fade out to: Swelling Music!

Fade out to: Two kids running into the sunset (traffic (Shibuya))!

Fade out to: Hoops Dream!

Fade out to: Noriko and Beat eating Creamsicles by the river. (We’ve seen this before, but I didn’t think to mention it… Although that may have been a different girl.)

This film was controversial when it was released because of its violence, but it is no worse than if Sam Peckinpah re-filmed The Wild Bunch using the Lord of the Flies as the script and 40 middle-schoolers for the cast. And also re-filming a classic Wild-Bunch-like bloodbath-climax every 3 minutes.

Interesting historical tie-ins: its attempted initial USA release was nearly concurrent to the Columbine shootings; and, the director’s personal history as a 15-year-old munitions worker who was bombed during WW-II.

Has to be seen to be believed. Check it out!