Battle Royale - Special Edition (NTSC)

[m4yh3m]

I received this from hkflix.com today and was apprehensive as I have seen poor PAL transfers and VCDs of this movie. Well, I got the NTSC (i.e. U.S.) version of this movie and all I can say is wow. Crisp print, DTS (Japanese), with English subtitles, and in 16x9 anamorhpic.

[Hesten]

I grabbed the swedish PAL release to get the special edition (getting BA special edition is quite a challenge, 117 versions out there, but heres a link: http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/video/db2.html).
Untill that i had only seen the ripped version and DAMN, its a whole new movie.
The subtitles on this one compared to the rip are also excellent. In the ripped version, the whole reason for Kitano sitting alone in the classroom before Nobu cut him, are missing. In the titles here, we get to know WHAT was actually written on the blackboard was that the class had taken a day off because they felt like it.
´
For a BA fan, i can highly reccomend the swedish version.

[masteen]

I received this from hkflix.com today and was apprehensive as I have seen poor PAL transfers and VCDs of this movie. Well, I got the NTSC (i.e. U.S.) version of this movie and all I can say is wow. Crisp print, DTS (Japanese), with English subtitles, and in 16x9 anamorhpic.

Got a link for the version you got?

[m4yh3m]

http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.527 ... etails.htm

-----------------Individual Item Breakdown-----------------

Item Ref. Price ea. Qty. Description

bat_8809032222174 $29.95 1 Battle Royale [SE Director's Cut 2-Disc NTSC] DVD

------------------------End of Order-----------------------


Very odd, looks like it is out of print again, damn distributors...

[m4yh3m]

Sorry to repy to my own reply (duh!) but if you are willing to chance a burn vs. original, this source seems to have the same product for $10.00 cheaper than I paid for it. I can confirm that the keepcase cover is the same edition I have.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW

[Metaphantasus]

I was in Tokyo and they were doing a press deal with Beat talking about a prequel.

[Winnow]

There are three threads on VV for this movie!

Since I watched the SE (Special Edition) I'll post here.

I've been wanting to see Battle Royale for a few years and finally spotted it doing my random movie scan of the divx newsgroup. (Japanese with English and Korean subtitle options as separate files)*

The actress that played Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill is in this movie but she's not really one of the main characters.

I though it was pretty good. My opinion may be slightly lower than it should be because I was a little under the weather last night while watching it.

What the hell kind of japanese school outfits where those girls wearing? Their skirts had linings and grandma undies under them. Zero panty shots in a movie that involves all out combat to the death between 20+ girls and 20+ boys is just wrong. (that's an automatic 10 (100 scale) point deduction right there!)

Moving on, it's pretty entertaining, although you need to suspend all sorts of reality for this one. It's a blood sprayer movie.

With the reason not being really important to the story, 40+ kids from a 7th grade class, (7th grade in Japan has older kids than 7th grade in the U.S. it looks like) chosen randomly, are knocked out with sleeping gas on a bus and brought to a deserted island. They are told that they have three days to kill each other off until there is one student left. If there are more than one at the end of the three days, the remaining students all die...so, either one survives or none survive. To make it more interesting, each student is given a bag that has a unique weapon. Some are good (machine guns, etc, )and some aren't so good. The 10 kilometer (diameter/radius?) island is divided up into quadrants and every day, certain quadrants are off limit danger zones. The students are all wearing electronic collars that monitor their heart rate and track their movements. If the students are in a bad quadrant at the time it is off limits, their head gets blown off (collar explodes).

That's really not giving anything away but gives you an idea of the setting.

79/100 (Japanese Oddball Genre, with the full 10 point deduction per above)

New movie player I use makes storyboards (like the preview jpegs you see for pr0n!) so I made them for Battle Royale. Possibly spoilers so hiding the images.

[Show]

* I chose the English subtitles!

[Canelek]

D/L'ed this last year. I really enjoyed it, but have to agree with Winnow on the Japanese schoolgirl theme.

[Hesten]

Just a warning.
If you like Battle Royale, and spot Battle Royale 2, do NOT buy or download it, you have been warned. I bought it, that and Blair Witch Project are the only 2 DVDs in my 400+ collection i regret buying.

[Canelek]

Don't feel too bad...I bought 'The Hulk' before watching it. Licker is that I accidentally bought the fullscreen format, then drove all the way across town to replace with widescreen version.

[Hesten]

Don't feel too bad...I bought 'The Hulk' before watching it. Licker is that I accidentally bought the fullscreen format, then drove all the way across town to replace with widescreen version.

Hehe, i dont feel too bad about Blair Witch Project, since i got it on DVD from the US the day before it was released in theaters here, so at least i managed to see it in time to laugh at the idiots actually going to the movies for it That helped a little bit on it.

AND i thought that the americans had enough movie taste to only be frightened of semi-decent movies. Now i know better . To be fair, BW had awesome media coverage/pr stunt, aimed at americans, but ignored in europe, so we didnt have all the "ooh, it might be real" think that the Us had at release time.

[Canelek]

Yeah, Blair Witch Project had HUGE hype. So did snakes on a plane, but it didn't do quite so well. Oh, and make sure NOT to watch BW2...