There is perhaps a good reason why Koushun Takami never wrote a sequel to his hit novel Battle Royale, but that reason never dawned upon Kenta Fukasaku—taking the director’s seat after his father’s death— and the producers of this sequel to the 2000 film. Instead of focusing on a different set of kids on the island or perhaps taking the prequel route, Battle Royale II continues the story of the first film and jumps ahead several years later, to where Shuya Nanahara, all grown up, is now head of an anti-adult [what?] terrorist organization known as Wild Seven, while Noriko is mysteriously missing from the picture. The government, perhaps in an attempt to boost viewer ratings, decides to revamp the ‘Battle Royale Program’ with a little irony and sends the annually chosen class of 9th graders out to attack the terrorists and handle the government’s dirty work. They also put a new twist on the collars, where every child is connected to another in a deadly buddy system as if they were going out on a field trip. If the two kids wander too far apart, or if one happens to die, both collars will explode.
As expected, this change speeds up the body count and in an oddly ironic twist, shows the filmmakers do not care one bit about the children in this film. While the last one attempted to give background information and depth to a number of individual characters, the sequel simply murders boatloads of nameless students for some early shock value. The film plays out more like a generic war film than anything else, shifting the focus to simply Shuya and one child, Shiori, the vengeful daughter of Kitano. While some action scenes—recalling the visuals of Saving Private Ryan—are admittedly energetic and immersive, Battle Royale II’s plot line is not so much.
Even Shuya begins to lose his charm, once the surviving children finally make it to his hideout. For a film so full of repetitive explanations and speeches about ideology, terrorism and rebellion, it says surprisingly little. Tatsuya Fujiwara’s performance is reduced to heavy-handed diatribes and cold droning—the fault of the script and direction more than anything else. Ai Maeda, as the daughter, receives the occasional chance to act, but her stolid, unresponsive character does little for the viewer as well. Takeshi Kitano and Sonny Chiba make cameos in flashbacks that amount to very little.
When the film turns back to action again after a seemingly interminable act for downtime, nothing is accomplished and little is done for the viewer’s interest. The gunfights turn into the editing of familiar wincing faces in close-up shots, as they fire their guns repeatedly with melodramatic scores swelling in the background. While the film does have one of the greatest moments ever when an overly eccentric Riki Takeuchi, donning a rugby uniform, inexplicably appears during a climactic battle scene, this alone cannot save a film.
Reviewed by Tarun
