http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23540
This could be… interesting. And by interesting, I mean eye-bleedingly terrible.
There is little chance American cinema can do justice to this. Good God. I can picture it now; The Breakfast Club with guns! Nnnnngah…
Well, we’ve matched or bettered their violence in our horror movies, so there isn’t too much to worry about on that front if they try. That more or less covers the entire movie.
That addresses my problem with this. Well, one of them.
Battle Royale is not a horror film. It’s gory, yes, and the recent spate of American gore horror films have shown that it can be done well. But it’s a mix of gore. action and dark humour which brings up interesting questions, and I don’t trust American cinema to do either of those two things well. Plus i’m not entirely certain that gore-filled violence against kids is going to be that acceptable to potential filmmakers. Hell, one of the important plot points is one character fixing up a truck bomb to use against soldiers thanks to instructions from his insurgent uncle; that’s really not going to be left in, given the current climate.
The more important problem though is the cast. Being American, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t be made without a known cast (at least for the leads), and while the thought of seeing Lindsay Lohan get an axe in the head is tempting, it really wouldn’t work. And then there’s the problem that “teenager” in American productions often means 20-30 year olds.
Blast. That should be “those two *last * things”.
Care to explain why? I don’t mean to be an asshat, but it just irks me when people automatically assume that American cinema is so very inferior in comparison to Asian. It’s cool if you’re a Japanophile-- though please try not to make vastly generalizing assumptions about cultures. It comes off a bit snarky. Just sayin’.
I heard rumors about this a while ago. I’m not particularly looking forward to this, however, so long as it’s better than Battle Royale II… I’ll be okay with it.
I’m not really a Japanophile; I’m pretty sure this is the only Japanese film I own (upon checking, no, I have Seven Samurai, too). And American cinema can be excellent. Most of my favourite films are American! I’m really not a “Asian culture > American culture! 
!” kinda person. I just don’t think that a film of this type could be made well, and that the content of the film would likely be radically changed before it would be acceptable to producers.
As little hope as I have for this, I don’t think it’d be* that* bad. 
“Battle Royale,” eh? I don’t suppose anybody knows where I could pick up a copy of the original? I’ve been a long-time fan of Chiaki Kuriyama from her modelling work, as well as “Kill Bill, Vol. I”.
I’ve therefore heard of “Battle Royale,” but didn’t think it was probably obtainable by myself. I’d like to see it, though. A costar of hers from that film was originally supposed to be in KB V.I as well (playing Go-go Yubari’s sister), but was busy doing other projects. Since Tarantino couldn’t get her, he wrote the part out.
I could probably dig out a cite for that if anyone wants one…and it’s still floating out there in Internetland.
It’s on Netflix. If the box picture they’ve got there is accurate, it’s the same edition as i’ve got, which is pretty decent.
Groovy! Thanks, RT (not the “Firefly” one)!
Is it region 1? If not, might be a problem.
Upon searching, Amazon seems to have a region 1 director’s cut. My order’s already in.
I guess I’m not sure how an American remake could be too much worse that the original. I mean, really, Battle Royale isn’t exactly a great movie.
If they stay more true to the book than the Japanese version, I daresay it might even be better. But I think it will be a fine line they have to walk with the violence against children and the need to create a movie that doesn’t shrink from the message of the book. And if there’s anything American cinema is good at, it’s completely failing to walk a fine line successfuly.
Huh. Whaddaya know? BR pretty much topped my list of sucessful Japanese movies that wouldn’t get a Hollywood remake, what with Columbine and all. I wonder how much of the remake is going to be (arguably) a metaphor of high school and how much of it is going to be straight, probably dumb, Hollywood action.
Out of curiousity, to whom is “their violence” referring? The makers of the original Battle Royale or, say, all of Japan? If the latter, I (honestly) want to see a movie that, overall, is more violent than Ichi the Killer.