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BATTLE ROYALE (2000)

FAQ:
IS THE MOVIE REALLY BANNED IN AMERICA?

No. "Banned" implies a decision by the government to make exhibition, distribution or sale of the film against the law; technically, the U.S. government does not do that, leaving the responsibility of censoring or choosing not to distribute certain films to the movie industry itself, under the auspices of the Motion Picture Association of America, which assigns ratings to the films. A distributor can even choose not to let the MPAA review their movie and release it unrated; it makes it extremely difficult to put in the multiplex, but an unrated artistic movie can surely get an arthouse screening somewhere, and the distributor can always release it on DVD. So it's up to a distributor to come to an agreement with Toei, the Japanese company behind the movie Battle Royale, and get the rights to release it in some format (theatrical and/or home video) in North America, and this has not happened.

Why? it's a long story, and a relatively complicated issue that can't be chalked up completely to American distributors' timidity, Toei's
conditions for sale (financial and otherwise), or the MPAA standards. It's a combination of all of them, with different factors affecting things differently over time.

One thing to keep in mind is that it's NOT the gore and violence in the film that makes the material very controversial and questionable. It's the fact that the violence is being inflicted by fifteen-year-old characters on other fifteen-year-old characters. We see plenty of high-schoolers and college students get sliced and diced on American screens by masked maniacs. But never have we seen ninth graders kill other ninth graders in a sustained, wall-to-wall series of violent attacks. Whether we're still sore from Columbine or not, and whether the rule is codified or unspoken, there seems to be an age limit to characters that can be killed onscreen for American movies, which probably explains why BR possesses a lot of extra shock value to Americans.

Here's what we know:
Toei's asking price for distribution ranges from just under $1 million to well over $2 million, depending on who they're selling it to
(http://www.battleroyalefilm.net/sequel/oldnews2.html#603 ). Obviously North American distribution is the golden goose, so they'd charge top dollar--too costly for the smaller distributors like Media Blasters and Tokyo Shock who would be the ones most interested in the film.

Inquiries with Toei's International Sales department were met with downright rejection by Toei. (link 1, link 2) There wasn't even any mention of the price. Here are excerpts:

"...With much regret we inform you that we are withholding distribution,
in any formats, of the above mentioned picture for Northwest (sic) America
due to the picture's contents and theme..."
- Hideyuki Baba, Manager, International Sales and Purchasing, Toei

"our company decided not to release the picture in North Amercia (sic)
despite many offers from American distributors including big studios."
- Hideyuki Baba

In addition to pointing out the movie's extremely questionable content, an article in Premiere magazine reported that Toei had unreasonable expectations for the release of the film, wanting it to be a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-size wide release and not confined to limited arthouse runs.

"If the next school shooting were to occur while Battle Royale was still
playing, there's a good chance that somebody would get sued."
- David Schultz, distribution supervisor, American Cinematheque

"We offered to take it out as an art house film...but Toei wasn't interested.
They see it as this huge commercial hit and they want to open it on 300 screens
in shopping malls. What they don't understand is that it in the US it will never get
past the MPAA ratings board, and the major theater chains will never play it
un-rated. If you cut it enough to get an R rating there'd be nothing left."
- Anonymous representative of an independent American distribution company

A representative of another company who made a bid for the distribution of the movie has also mentioned that Toei's contracts contained had many requirements that were unreasonable compared to most distribution contracts; without going into specifics, the person from the distribution company said that it granted certain rights to the licensor (Toei) that would under most circumstances go to the licensee.

So make of that what you will. One could speculate that this sad stalemate is the result of back-and-forth disagreements and negotiations, leading up to Toei's taking the film off the market (and by consequence, its sequel as well, which was offered to the international market even before production was completed and was snapped up by 30 nations--ironically, one of these "film market" gatherings was held in Los Angeles) when it comes to North American distribution.

But given that there's no government-imposed moratorium on the film, and there are some American distributors who would probably still want to distribute BR in the U.S., one can't say that there's a "ban" on BR, whether an actual one or a "technical" one.