This March, Anchor Bay Home Entertainment will bring Battle Royale: The Complete Collection to Blu-ray. Inspired by Koushun Takami's controversial bestseller, the two films comprising the collection - Battle Royale and Battle Royale II: Requiem - detail a dystopian future where teenagers are forced to fight to the death in a yearly competition.
Directed by Kinju Fukasaku (Tora! Tora! Tora!), the first Battle Royale remains one of the most controversial thrillers ever made; due to its violent content involving children, Battle Royale only just received its its first official North American theatrical run on December 24th, 2011. International star Takeshi Kitano (Outrage) headlines the film as the teacher who introduces his class - 3-B - to the rules and regulations of the BR Act.
For the sequel, Fukasaku's son Kenta picked up the directing reins after his father died of prostate cancer. Battle Royale II: Requiem expands the scope of its predecessor, as it follows both the bloody exploits of a new class turned against itself as well as the terrorist plot orchestrated by the first film's survivors to bring down the BR Act forever.
This four-disc collection offers the Battle Royale theatrical and director's cuts and the Battle Royale II: Requiem director's cut, with Battle Royale in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and Battle Royale II: Requiem in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. All versions have accompanying 7.1 Japanese (w/English subtitles) Dolby TrueHD and 5.1 English Dubbed Dolby TrueHD audio tracks. The set also contains the following bonus supplements:
The Making Of Battle Royale featurette
Battle Royale press conference
Instructional video: "Birthday Version"
Audition/rehearsal footage
Special effects comparison featurette
Footage from the 2000 Tokyo International Film Festival
Also have the Arrow version. I'll have to compare the bonus features between the two, but since I never liked Requiem, I can't see much reason to buy this second set.
Battle Royale has received a lot of attention since its release so I was anxious to see it. In short, it was a disappointing experience. The violence in this movie is the very definition of gratuitous. The improbable, absurd plot seems to be nothing more than a flimsy excuse to show various ways to murder people. If that's your thing or you have a fetish for things Asian then you won't want to miss this movie.
I've got the Arrow discs, but if these are prices well and the transfers are leaps and bounds better (which i can't really see being the case) i may double dip.
Any work if this is a new transfer or the same one as the Arrow discs?
I concure w/ bgmat58. By the look of it, it appears to be a digibook. Like some of you, I too have the Arrow LE, and will hold off till I hear about whether or not BR has a new transfer or not. BR II wasn't very good imo, so its inclusion won't be enough to get me to double dip.
