Battle Royale (2000)

BATTLE ROYALE  (2000)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Kinji Fukasaku
    Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Tarô Yamamoto,
    Chiaki Kuriyama, Sôsuke Takaoka, Beat Takeshi
42 kids on a school field trip are drugged and transported to an island were they're issued survival gear and weapons and sent out to play a deadly game. The rules are simple. They're to kill each other, and the last one still breathing wins. The game lasts three days. If more than one player survives at the end, all the survivors die. An obvious forerunner to "The Hunger Games", and an impressive piece of storytelling, considering the number of characters involved. Titles keep a running count of which combatants have been killed and how many remain. Beat Takeshi Kitano, who's like Japan's Robert Mitchum, plays the deadpan ex-teacher who moderates the game. My colleague Dr. Sporgersi thought that in an American remake the role should be played by Robert Forster, but I was thinking Bill Murray.