How Battle Royale – 2000 movie that spawned Fortnite, PUBG games – became a cult classic
- Back in cinemas following a 4K restoration, Battle Royale provoked an outcry over the juvenile bloodshed and violent scenes upon its Japanese release in 2000
- The film’s premise spawned an online video game genre worth billions, while even Avengers comics felt its influence
Let battle (re)commence. Twenty-one years after its release, the controversial Japanese cult classic Battle Royale is back in cinemas following a shiny new 4K restoration – although you might say it’s never really been away.
Kinji Fukasaku’s action thriller, which follows a group of high-school students forced by a totalitarian government to fight to the death, is arguably one of the most influential movies of the 2000s.
Certainly, its bloody mix of politics and ultra-violence tickled Quentin Tarantino, who declared in 2009 that it was his favourite movie.
Battle Royale began life with the 1999 novel of the same name by Koushun Takami, who said he dreamt the idea: “I got the mental image of a teacher from a school drama I saw on TV long ago. He said, ‘All right class listen up… now today, I’m going to have you kill each other!’ The image of him grinning as he spoke was so vivid, I laughed but was also terrified.”