This is pretty much only for folks who have seen both movies.
However, realize that both stream on Netflix and you can simply watch both this weekend and then make a nicely informed vote. 
I like both movies quite a bit and while I give a ton of credit to Hunger Games, I think Battle Royale is the better movie.
However, Catching Fire is a far better sequel than Battle Royale 2. Far, far better.
I have some Battle Royale nostalgia, but the story isn’t as good. BR, and especially the sequel, had a message that had to hit you over the head. Neither of the childkilling justifications made too much sense though. Basically “kids are brats” vs. generational punishment for past rebellion.
I did prefer BR’s random (or “random”) weapon vs. HG’s “grab what you can” weapon selection. Get stuck with a squeaky hammer? Tough, better find something better. And the HG bad guys were indoctrinated from a early age vs. we found a teenage serial killer.
Yeah, there are definitely some aspects of Battle Royale I like better, but Hunger Games is obviously the much more polished and cohesive movie. Battle Royale has too much of that Japanese weirdness (just in the way the actors talk) and the ending definitely was too weird.
The Hunger Games has Katniss Everdeen. The Hunger Games has Jennifer Lawrence as Katness Everdeen. That alone makes it 1000 times better than Battle Royale.
People who said at the time “I liked it better when it was called Battle Royale” are idiots. They’re very very different, and it’s not as if more than one movie can’t be made with vaguely similar plot elements. I saw Battle Royale for the first time when it was a midnight show after THG had been released. As I itweeted at the time, "I liked it better when it was called “Series 7: The Contenders.”
Funny, but Battle Royale came first.
Other: Depends why you are watching it. I’ve talked to a number of Japanese people about Battle Royale, and from a sociological standpoint, it is one of the few movies that reveals the ugly truth about Japanese culture. One example is the scene where the girls are holed up in the tower, but within seconds are at each other’s throats. While Japan has a group-oriented type of social structure, the movie reveals that it is very superficial and a lot of anger and resentment exists between the group members. Another example is the idea of hopelessness. Right after the students are given the bags, about 10 of them immediately commit suicide. When faced with the option of trying to meet a difficult goal vs giving up, many Japanese people would prefer to surrender.
The Hunger Games, conversely, is pretty much a straight-forward action film with social commentary with roots all the way back to Rollerball from the 60’s. The structure is essentially the same rags-to-riches type story that Rocky made popular, including the training montage.
This is similar to what I was going to say. Battle Royale was just too stylized; if you strip away some of that weirdness, it has the potential to be one of the sickest, most gripping movies ever.
I’ve seen parts of Battle Royale when others were watching. Amateurish and not very interesting. I walked out because it didn’t hold my interest. Hunger Games is certainly not one of my favorites but it was a decent movie that held my attention.
The basic (identical) premise in both movies is ludicrous, but personally I prefer Battle Royale because there is little to no explanation, they just jump right into the killin’.
Hunger Games OTOH is a perfect argument for why you don’t try to explain it.
I really feel like the first Hunger Games movie succeeds in spite of the movie part. That is, the underlying story (the first book) is so well done that the movie can do a bit of a low-budget copy job and it turned out well enough. HG did really well (or got really lucky? not that it matters, might as well give them the credit!) with casting: other than Hutcherson, they hit on getting ‘good enough’ actors for every part, and of course they got Lawrence on board before she started winning awards. Meanwhile, the sets were underwhelming, the direction was less than what I’ve come to expect from this sort of movie, and the script adaptation was mechanical. The second movie largely fixed all of this and was much better, IMO, but I’m only looking at the first one here.
I didn’t think Battle Royale was perfect by any means, but I did think it was a better movie. Admittedly, I wasn’t judging it in the same way: foreign and subtitles vs Hollywood and well known property. I liked the weirdness, and I liked some of the social stuff it did. Might be an expectations thing, too, though it wasn’t like I came into BR with no expectations; it had been built up a bit as well, from what I heard here and elsewhere.
I agree about expectations playing a factor. Other than Quentin Tarantino saying Battle Royale is greatest movie made since he became a director, I had not heard much about Battle Royale.
I just put it on TV on a whim and have seen it twice more in the past couple years.
I actually had read Hunger Games before seeing the movie, so I was seeing it from a different perspective.
Hunger Games has a protagonist, actual plot, etc. It’s a better movie than Battle Royale, which is a mess of a story. As a concept, Battle Royale is better, much easier to believe than the rigid fantasy world of Katniss and her more or less professional gladiators. The way the teenagers initially grasp the concept of really killing each other is fascinating to me.
I agree Series 7 the contenders was fantastic. Battle Royale had pathos (the kids choosing death is memorable and it’s been over a decade since I saw it). The Hunger Games I like more in theory (book, anyway. Katniss didn’t owe it to be a heroine. This was great. The gasp! Media is bad was duller than spoons, though).
I actually thought that was one of the scenes that made sense without needing to be mired in Japanese culture. Teenage girls seem to naturally hate each other in American culture, too.
Battle Royale is a cheesy movie that takes itself too seriously. It would make a good Rifftrax. The Hunger Games is a cheesy movie that knows it’s a cheesy movie, and has fun with itself. The Rifftrax of Hunger Games wasn’t very funny to me because of this.
You must’ve seen a different Hunger Games than I because the one I saw was so preposterously self-serious, with the raising-the-fist and the Katniss-always-melancholy and the hitting us over the head with economic disparity (not to mention the chemistry-free “romance”).
Plus, when it comes to the bloodthirsty nature of the games, the film is mostly a cheat, with a majority of the deaths happening off camera.
Battle Royale may hint with absurdity, but all the kids I saw in that movie were real, with real emotions and reactions and dysfunctions. And it is a very funny movie, in a disturbing black comedy sort of way. And naturally, all the violence is believable and quite sad and horrible.
Plus, Battle Royale doesn’t suffer from the interminable (and wholly unnecessary) shaky-cam that the first HG had (and which the sequel mostly abandoned).
No contest whatsoever.
I’m going to give the actors and director credit (rather than say they just lucked into it) because the romance is supposed to be chemistry-free, at least from the girl’s side.
What? No love for The Condemned?
Interestingly, Quinten Tarantino chose the actress who played Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill based off of a similar character she played in Battle Royale.
Which sort of says everything that needs to be said about Battle Royale. It’s not a particularly “good” film. But it is the sort of film that film nerds (like Tarantino) like to reference. As in “here’s this obscure Japanese film that has a similar plot to megablockbuster The Hunger Games.”
It’s like people who compare Dredd 3D to The Raid. I have trouble guessing which movie fewer people actually saw. Well guess what, nerds. Two years before Judge Dredd first started putting down block wars in Mega-City One, J.G. Ballard wrote a novel High Rise about a futuristic apartment complex where the inhabitants go insane and start killing each other.
Anyhow, my point is that sometimes the first person who comes up with an idea, doesn’t necessarily come up with the best version of it.
BUMP
Six years later and my wife and I are again watching Battle Royale. We also recently watched Hunger Games and six years later, my position has reversed.
I love Battle Royale, but Hunger Games it the superior movie by quite a bit. I still think Battle Royale is an excellent movie, though. I hate the sequel, but this movie has a kind of timeless quality that allows me to always enjoy it.
I preferred Battle Royal. It didn’t stint on the gore.